Festive season is upon us. Yesterday, as I sat in my Delhi home, I found myself missing the unmistakable buzz of Mumbai at this time of year. In that city, you never needed a calendar to tell you Ganpati Bappa was arriving. The air itself seemed to thrum with anticipation. The sounds of dhol-tasha rehearsals floated in from street corners weeks in advance, neighbourhood mandals began constructing towering pandals overnight, and markets overflowed with marigolds, banana leaves and the clay idols of Bappa, each one carefully crafted and waiting to be brought home.
Growing up in Mumbai, Ganesh Chaturthi was not just a festival, it was a season. The rhythm of the city changed. Every morning in our home began with the heady fragrance of incense sticks and freshly steamed modaks mingling with the sound of devotional songs playing on the radio. My mother would spend hours perfecting her ukadiche modak, her hands moving with a confidence that only comes with years of practice. I would watch as the soft rice flour dough gave way under her fingers to form delicate pleats, each one carefully tucked in like a small purse. As children, we had our own rituals. We would run up and down the building stairs, visiting neighbours, sampling plates of amti, poha, or different variations of modaks. Some were softer, some sweeter, some filled with poppy seeds or sesame instead of coconut and jaggery, but we would happily devour them all. That was Mumbai at its festive best, noisy, communal, exuberant. You could feel the city smiling, even in its crowded trains and traffic jams.
Yesterday in Delhi, I tried to recreate that feeling in my own quiet way. I prepared a feast of modak, amti (toor dal), bhaat (rice), toop (ghee), and batatyachi bhaji (a simple, dry potato dish). It was not the same as the cacophony of celebrations back home, but it was a little slice of familiarity. In those flavours, I felt closer to the city that raised me, and the festival that has always been my anchor.
Unless you have lived in a parallel world, you are probably weary of the endless Delhi versus Mumbai debate. For me, that tug-of-war is more personal. I have lived in Mumbai for over a decade, and soon it will be a decade in Delhi too. My roots are tangled in both cities, so if you ever wanted a walking embodiment of the exasperation behind the question of which city is better, it would be me.
Here is what is beautiful about festivals like Ganesh Chaturthi. For this one week every year, the debate dissolves. Food and celebration have a way of bridging divides. Delhi, with all its own rich traditions, happily borrows a slice of Mumbai’s festive spirit. You will see mithai shops stocking modaks, chefs experimenting with new versions, and ventures like Rohini’s Modakwala thriving as NCR’s go-to for a taste of Maharashtra. Even the most die-hard Dilliwala cannot resist the charm of Bappa’s favourite sweet.
This is why food, for me, remains the greatest storyteller of culture. It is not just sustenance, it is a vehicle for memory, emotion, and identity. A modak in Delhi does not only satisfy a sweet tooth, it carries with it the story of a tradition, of families gathering in kitchens, of children sneaking extra sweets, of streets filled with chants and drums. When you think of it that way, the parallels between Maharashtra’s modak and Bengal’s naru or kheer kadam are impossible to miss. Across regions, we have always shared our festivals and their flavours, weaving a fabric that is diverse yet deeply connected.
This year in Delhi, Ganesh Chaturthi coincided with startlingly grey monsoon skies, crisp air that made the city feel momentarily cleansed, and a nip of festivity that even the capital’s fast pace could not ignore. It is hard not to smile when you see the little ways in which communities adopt each other’s traditions, making space for joy that transcends geography.
That, perhaps, is the real magic of Ganpati Bappa. He does not only bring prosperity into our homes, he brings us together. He reminds us that the debates over Delhi and Mumbai, North and West, us and them, all fade in the face of a shared sweet, a shared song, a shared celebration.
Ultimately, the spirit of the festival is not in where you celebrate it, but in how it makes you feel connected. For me, even in Delhi, a plate of steaming modaks is enough to carry me back to the heart of Mumbai, to the sound of Morya re ringing through the streets, to the childhood joy of believing that the world, for a few days at least, was entirely made of sweetness.