Mumbai: While the organisers of most Dahi Handi events were unwilling on Thursday to toe the line following an August 2014 order of the Bombay high court, many of them across Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai toned down their protests and chose to carry black flags and wear black masks and wrist bands instead of defying the restrictions placed on them.
With police teams patrolling the streets looking for people violating the rules, Dahi Handi participants, or Govindas, found innovative ways to stick by the court guidelines but still register their protest.
In several places, the organisers began by raising their handi to a height of over 40 feet as a salute — or ‘salaam’ — to the earlier tradition and then lowered the handi to the prescribed 20 feet before attempting to break it.
Dahi Handi is celebrated a day after Janmashtami to celebrate the birth of Lord Krishna and is linked to the legend about Krishna breaking pots to steal butter.
Kokan Nagar Govinda Pathak in Dadar had one of the most novel ways of protesting. The Govindas there formed a 38-foot, nine-layered horizontal pyramid by lying down on the ground, and then used a ladder to break the handi placed at a height of 40 feet.
Dadar, Parel and Shivaji Park saw many Govindas sport black masks, wristbands and headbands in protest against the HC order. A group even made a human pyramid higher than 20 feet, but only waved a black flag and did not break any handi.
Thane and Dombivili witnessed 'silent' protests, spearheaded by the MNS. The Chitrapat Sena, led by MNS activists Abhijit Panse and Shashank Nagvekar, erected a handi at a height of 49 feet to break the world record of 43 feet, but later lowered the handi and broke it at 20 feet.
I will break law, says T-shirt message
A police case has been filed against Avinash Yadav, the man who openly defied Supreme Court orders during the ‘dahi handi’ celebrations in Mumbai on Thursday.
Mr Jadhav, wore a T-shirt sporting a message — “I will break the law” written in Marathi -— has been booked under the charge of wilfully disobeying an order by a public servant, in this case the police, a website said. The move came as the police intervened, forcing the organisers to reduce the height of the dahi handi which was strung up this morning at 49 feet — more than double the 20 feet allowed by the Supreme Court.
