Ganesha Chaturthi

On Wednesday was the celebration of Ganesha's (one of the Indian Gods, he is the elephant headed God very familiar around the world and he is the remover of obstacles) birthday and of his 'coming home.' It is a very community oriented festival, all family and friends get together and visit each others houses. What happens is you buy a Ganesha idol made of clay. Families buy it for the household and also organizations buy it for each community (condos/apartment/residential buildings). There was one idol purchased for the two buildings in which Keshav's parents live. They set up everything at the ground level (street level, where the vehicles are parked within the community)...decorating the idol, offering fruits, flowers etc... and priest came and held a pooja (prayer) to the Ganesha idol. So, K and I took Abhi for the pooja in the morning and there were many people there from the buildings. Some of the community had idols at home and were doing poojas in their homes as well. After that, prasada (food that was offered to Ganesha, then distributed to us after the pooja) was eaten by everyone. After the local pooja, we went with Ks cousin Govi (you have seen him in a past post) to their college and attended another pooja there. They had a slightly bigger idol. You should see the size of some of them, they are huge. Course, everyone is telling me that these are nothing compared to some of the ones in north India which can be up to 20 feet tall. Here are pictures from the pooja...


And, to my surprise, India is becoming conscious about being "green." Many of the idols have always been painted with oil paints. When those are submerged into lakes and other bodies of water (which is the second part of the festival I haven't gotten to yet.), and probably thousands of them are submerged, they pollute the water. I have seen a lot of adverts for environmentally friendly idols made of clay and not even painted or there are also idols painted with vegetable-based paints that are better. One of the problems is these might not be as desirable because they are rather dull looking compared to the oil painted idols. They really are very pretty. So, how wide-spread it is, I don't know but interesting to see. Idols for sale on the streets...(plastic covers were on some of the bigger idols, to protect them from the rains).


Ks college is one organization that is demonstrating this "green" consciousness. They bought a permanent idol, very brilliantly painted like I was talking about, they will use every year and also bought a small clay, environmentally friendly they planned to submerge in water. Here are pictures from college...


After that, the idol is then to be immersed into a body of water. That was to happen in the evening so I will get to that a little later. First, the food. As with any Indian festival, food is a main event. After the poojas in the morning, we were free for lunch. I had been reading about the specific foods for this festival and wanted to try them. We went to a local restaurant to see about getting some and the line was so long we decided not to wait...I figured we wouldn't be able to try. However, we did end up getting some. Ks parent went back to the same restaurant later to get take out but they said everything was gone. Ks mom told them my daughter-in-law has come all the way from the US and wants to try the festival foods. Somehow, that sunk in and they promptly gave her some....go figure. So I got to try kadubu and modaka (these are supposed to be two sweets that Ganesha really liked to eat) among other things. Here is my plate...


In the evening, there was a show were lots of kids from the building performed dancing, singing etc... to celebrate the event. The girls who are big fans of Abhi wanted to make sure he was coming so he could see them dance. He was a little tired and cranky that evening but he got to see some of it. K was in charge of him that day so I could enjoy all the events. Abhi (and K) did end up leaving a bit early to feed and put Abhi to bed. He did get to enjoy some of it.

I will post about the immersion next time. Otherwise, this is going to become a book!