If I were a tree I'd leave

Essentially whats happening is this. Ganpati is around the corner. So at every 10 ft there is a sarvajanik ganpati mandal. Nothing wrong in that. Now whats begun to happen is that Ganpati has gone corporate. Every SGM is sponsored by Manikchand Mineral Water (which is actually 300% More Oxygen, but is somehow still h20), Karrz with Himesh and 2 R's, and other respected marketeers from the chaddi- banyan, and guthka industry.

Nothing wrong in that either...You could argue that sponsorship of GSMs is no different from that of college festivals. As a savvy marketeer, you engage with the youth or whatever your target audience is through events on the ground in which they are likely to participate.

However, what I noticed today as I was driving towards Bandra is something the tree huggers and/ or the anti-hoarding (print) lobby should take offense to. As in all other aspects of Indian society, and aided by politics, goons, corporatism and free enterprise, a standardization of sorts has come into play in the erstwhile ad-hoc Ganpati decoration.



This year, a lot of it in Mumbai is horizontal and hugging the pavement. To achieve this a scaffolding of sorts that rises from the foot of the curb and goes up to the level of about about a floor have been erected everywhere upon which the horizontal vinyls are then mounted.

On Mahim Causeway, there is no issue with doing that. At its worst, it's makng a terribly ugly stretch look even more an eyesore. However, in the Worli Naka & Shivaji Park areas, pesky trees which come in the way of the scaffolding are being 'modified'.

So this morninh I saw poor trees crying in anguish (the tree huggers were asleep) as a bunch of guys with machetes and axes went around ruthlessly chopping off their limbs...all so that we can be reminded about the refreshing qualities of a mineral water which magically has 300% more oxygen, while in reality the air will have less.