It’s no secret that Hyderabad has become one of the world’s hubs for tech conglomerates. What better way to commemorate that than through the intense and colourful celebrations of Ganesh Chathurthi? Tank Bund, needless to say, becomes incredibly manic during this time, so when a group of young men cleared up a line of space in the busy street and used old fabrics as barriers, people were naturally curious what the big deal was.
Those who managed to get a glimpse into the space could see a little manually-pulled carriage and 28 Ganesh idols, each with a tech logo attached to their little carriage. Tech companies mentioned included Snapchat, Jio, RedBus, Google Chrome, Twitter and Zomato. It’s a neat concept: Ganesha is the god of knowledge and wisdom so it’s an ideal way to celebrate how technology in Hyderabad is fast-paced.
Divine and viral
The delight of the on-lookers was unparalleled with many exclaiming, “How cute and cool!” or “What a breath of fresh air from the traffic-blocking trucks with faulty brakes.” With everyone’s phones out, of course the display went viral on YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.
So who is responsible for this eye-catching set-up? It’s a team of young IT students from Ramnagar including Bonakruthi Vinay, Mylaram Sanjeeva Kiran Kumar, Kongari Rakesh, Kona Shivasai, Bonkuram Veeresh and Surampally who wanted to do something different.
Vinay adds that this year, given there were countless conversations in the news about the Internet, the effects of social media, delivery apps and the impact of urban commuting programmes, it felt appropriate to highlight these trending topics which most of us use everyday without a second thought. “We do something different every year given what is going on in society.”
To top off the fun, the boys also dressed up as trending characters. Vinay dressed up as mask-donning DJ Marshmello who was recently in Hyderabad, and another member Sanju had a PUBG costume.
It took them 40 days to plan of which 30 days was physical prep. Any bigger display would have been too much work with their busy schedules. “We got a lot of appreciation,” Vinay recalls, “many people said we did excellent work.”
