Paris Ganesha Festival 2011

[French Mystique Tours]

Okay, if you are unfamiliar with the Ganesha festival it is a parade held each year in Paris that honors the Hindu deity Ganesh. That is about the extent of my knowledge of the Hindu religion. But why bother explaining anything (since I know nothing about the ritual signifance of the event anyway) and why not just get on to the photos of the parade. I started at Gare du Nord and walked up rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis so I could get ahead of the procession and photograph the still somewhat empty street.














Ahead of the procession is one of the municipal street cleaning trucks. A person walks in front of the truck with a hose and sprays down the street along the route. I'm assuming this is because those in the procession are all barefoot and so anything sharp or unsanitary is washed out of the path. The spray looked foamy so I'm assuming there was some sort of disinfectant in it. Now you know why the streets all look wet, not rain related. Although the skies looked dark at times the rain stayed away. Now on to the crowd photos.

I heard a great ruckus not far off so I ran in the direction of the noise to get some shots of the start of the procession.

[French Mystique Tours]

Pictures are all fine and well but to get the full effect of the energy and noise a video is much more helpful.







You might have noticed one of the peacock feather dancers in that last video looked a little out of control and was being restrained somwhat by an assistant. While the rest of the dancers all seemed in control and in tune with their surroundings this guy was definitely in an out of this world trance. He seemed to have re-entered the world when I saw him at the end of the parade a few hours later.





The women with the fire on their heads must have to be extremely careful. I could imagine with all the women in long flowing gowns and the free flying fabric everywhere that one wrong move with the fire would result in disaster.















There were two other members of the procession who were also in trance. It seemed as though these two were meant to be in trance and had very specific roles to perform. One of them was this woman with the green dress. She danced in front of one of the floats/altars.







The guy in the above picture thanked me for taking his photo by applying some of the orange pigment in his coconut to my forehead.

[French Mystique Tours]

There were many altars set up along the street with what appeared to be plates of offerings.




Unlike the men pulling floats, the women pulling their float did not go topless.








Of course, what religious festival would be complete without Eiffel Towers for sale.....




…...or Mickey and Minnie....




…..or Hello Kitty...




Here is the second of the dancers in trance.










Earlier in the day I had seen neatly piled mounds of coconuts lining the parade route. Later I found out what was their fate.




With all the barefoot people the procession was always preceeded by people sweeping the coconut shell fragments out of the way.

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This is how to break a coconut.












There's nuthin' like a good old fashioned coconut smashin'!




I left the coconut smashin' covered in coconut milk and the orange pigment the coconuts had been anointed with. I'm still picking coconut shell shards out of my hair.

[French Mystique Tours]

The trance guy did not break character.






All the faithful (or maybe not so, and just having fun) appeared to be happy to pose for a picture if you asked them.










I decided I would take some side streets and walk ahead of the procession to get some final shots. I went up to rue Ordener where I practically had the street to myself.








At last the silence was broken by the sound of drums.

[French Mystique Tours]

I had been following the procession for close to 3 hours and I was feeling like I had my fill. I still hadn't seen The Temple but maybe next year. I'm sure I'll be back.