Ganesh Chathurti - 2019
Our favourite Indian God, Ganesha was celebrated over the weekend with flowers, parades, pujas, fireworks and lots and lots of drums and noise. The Ganesh festival celebrates the birthday of Lord Ganesha - the wonderfully colourful elephant God of beginnings, wisdom and success. Because he is supposed to bring success, everyone joins in to celebrate and the party atmosphere goes on for close to a week.
The traditions involve buying a Ganehsa 'idol' (a pottery statue of the God), often very brightly coloured, and then you have a puja in your home for all your friends and family to visit. The toxic neon idols are becoming less common and people are going for more safe and natural statues. After the puja, the idol is supposed to be immersed in water - representing the birth cycle and the return of Ganesh to his home. This is where there are many stories in the local paper of deaths, as many of the locals cannot swim and tragically die trying to stay faithful when immersing their Ganesha. Another story that I thought was a one-off was of electrocution while the massive idols are transported through the village. However, today I came across another story of 2 young boys dying and 5 critically injured, as the idol they were transporting touched live overhead wires. When will they learn?
Our local village (over the back fence) is quite the party zone - it can be celebrated for about 3 days, so I am not expecting much sleep in the next few days. The gated community we live in had a celebration of their own on Monday, with a lovely non-toxic clay Ganesha paraded through the cobblestone streets in a golf buggy - very 2019 !! Dancing, singing and lots of traditional food to be shared. The fireworks are on a par with Diwali for some neighbourhoods, again not aiding with our sleep!
I have added a video so that you can get a feel for the noise - this was our single lone drummer in our community - in the nearby village there is definitely more than one drummer !! earplugs were definitely needed last night and again tonight.
Happy Ganesha !
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| Ganesha is everywhere you look ! |
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| Quite the Pooja for a golf cart :) |
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| in he goes - he wasn't that big but was very heavy |
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| love this outfit !!!! |
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| Ganesha in all his glory |
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