I'm not particularly pleased with this photograph but wanted to post it as I couldn't find a better way to illustrate the scale of the Ganpati celebrations. Yesterday, the final day of this year's festival, saw hundreds of thousands of people converging in processions on Mumbai's beaches. Many were just spectators, others were drumming, dancing, setting off fireworks, throwing coloured paint at one another.

Here, on Chowpatty Beach, the crowds were huge at sunset and became bigger. Colossal statues were moved into position. At a certain moment there'd be a great churning in the crowd and at a run each statue would be rushed down the beach and into the sea, where rafts and swimmers transported the statues out to be tipped into the water. (Today at low tide the wreckage was quite something). The celebrations lasted much of the night.