The festival of गणेश चतुर्थी was my favourite as a child. We had a one and half day ceremony, commonly called as दिड दिवसाचा गणपती. An open area near my old school became an impromptu market for all the vendors - Ganesh statues, flowers, fruits, and also all the special offerings. The common tradition is to bring the statue the previous evening. The statue is kept covered till the pooja is performed. Another aspect of the festival are the decorations around the Murti. I have heard of special competitions in Mumbai and Pune (and probably other cities too). One of the recent ones I heard was of eco-friendly decorations, which should have been eco-friendly by default if using the age-old traditional methods of decoration.
Now the fun part, where you get to see the photos from last year of my trip to Mumbai. I have not normally traveled in festival time, and this little trip was such a happy coincidence.
The first few images are not so clear, I was in a taxi and the driver was more interested in getting a safe passage in the traffic. This is the pre-festival day, when the Murti is brought with much fanfare.
The next few are from various pandals around the city (a few that I managed to snap). The elaborate decorations on each are just amazing.
And a few permanent statues from malls and shops.
And from the Karekar Home:
And finally the विसर्जन. The visarjan ceremony is also as elaborate and with double the fanfare as bring-home ceremony. It is always a bit sad to see the Murti leave after the adoration at home. The most popular visarjan song sums it up perfectly...
"Ganpati Gele Gavala, Chain Padena Amhala!" (roughly translated as - Ganpati has left for his village, and made us all restless/sad/uneasy)
गणपती बाप्पा मोरया !!
No comments:
Post a Comment