Glad you like it. You made a fair comment - 'What is all this immersion malarkey..' Maybe I assumed that everybody knew 'immersion.' After the idol makers produce all the images of Shiva and the other Gods of the Hindu religion, the communities or families who commissioned the models, build pandals, or public alters, place their idols on the pandal and have a Pooja (festival) in the vicinity of the idol model, which becomes the actual God by this point. After 10 days they take the God/idol/model to the Ganges and place it (immerse it) in the sacred river - thereby giving the sacred idol back to the mother goddess, Ganga. That is one reason why the images have to be made from clay, bamboo, jute, rice straw and water paint - although they do use nails here and there.
So my god idol will be immersed in the Ganges on Sunday, and it will float off and sink. This is a piece of installation art/performance art. Designed to reflect the spiritual nature of the Hindu people - but for me a positive image portraying a hopeful future for children. The Hindu gods are not known for their benevolence, but have more to do with the general force that defeats evil. Shiva the main chic has ten arms nine carry weapons the last carries something nice.
I paid a visit to the site of the immersion on the Ganges today. Sunday should be interesting. Will try to put a report up by Monday. Here is one of many sites of what are called 'roadside dwellers' inhabited by scores of children.
Until the, slan.
Click to enlarge
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