Sunday, September 30, 2012

Ganesha - a warm welcome and a warm parting

This is the festival of devotion, belief and faith of people in India. Its generally about those 11 days when lord Ganesha is welcomed by every one - be it their home, housing societies, private colonies or big stage called "pandals". For all the devotees, its the most awaited festival of the year as their beloved "Bappa" is believed to be visiting their lives. 

The City of Celebration - Mumbai, has its own ways of celebrating and enjoying the festivity. Preparations here begins months back from the main festival - its about making of the Ganesha idol, its about the decoration and its about preparation of the stages or mandaps and joining all those small and tiny bits. 

Most critical of all the preparation is the making of Ganesha idol which begins at least a couple of months back and in some rare cases immediately post the current years festival's end. The Ganesha idols are from 1 inch to 35-40 feets huge so one can easily imagine the scale of preparation that undergoes in festival. Near festival day, most of the streets are lit and decorated with Ganesha idols, decoration items, variety of lightings etc. All these is being sold in the shops and on the streets. 

In Dadar - mumbai, we spotted one such lane, filled with Ganesha idols on both side of the lanes, literally thousands of them, these are villagers from Maharashtra who brings / makes their idols from their villages to earn their livelihood. Here is a sad part, the villagers go back to their homes on the first day of the festival with their unsold stuffs. 

One can spot big huge workshops in various parts of Mumbai where small and big Ganesh idols are made.

Welcome Day - Ganesh Chaturthi

Generally the welcome day "Ganesh Chaturthi" (A day in the Hindu Calendar) falls around end of August beginning September. On this day all the people get their Ganesha at the destination with the regular rituals and aarti's (Prayers) installation of the Ganesha idol is done. For all these 11 days, aarti is a daily ritual, and a lot of other social and cultural activities are a part of the actioned packed festival.


Parting Day - Emersion - Anant Chaturdashi

Eleventh day is the day of parting of the lord Ganesha from the devotee. On this day, people take their beloved Ganesha to emerse in to the water with a hope and prayer to Bappa to come back soon next year. Here its a grand celebration of an event, the music of dhol, dancing on the street, crackers bursting - its one crazy energetic madness on the Mumbai streets. There are special arrangements by the local authorities, traffic is redirected, lot of routes are closed for the traffic and there is no stopping for the devotees on the streets. This is a visual delight, one heck of a celebration - just be here next year at Girgaum Choupati in Mumbai, here takes place a grand celebration of thousands of Ganesha emersion into the Arabian Sea.      

For more information - do a google and you will get to know all about the festival.

Please see the below link for few clicks from the festival. These are from the days of preparation, a workshop where Ganesha idols were being made, the pandals and emersion with a hope for a new welcome.