Ganesh Chaturdhi in India

We arrived in India to take care of some official paperwork, visit Sam's family and friends, and also explore the country a little bit more.

Our arrival in Kadapa, India coincided with a big Hindu festival called Ganesh Chaturdhi, which is the celebration of Hindu god Ganesha (elephant head god). Ganesha is considered one of the most prayed gods in India with people invoking prayers for him before they start almost anything, including start of their day. This festival is celebrated for 11 days. The exact start date of this festival is not know but it has been celebrated every year at least since 1650s. On this occasion people keep Ganesha’s clay idol privately in homes, or publicly on big stages built only for this purpose. We were lucky to be able to watch the celebration up close and show them to Nora.

The celebration typically includes four rituals. During the first ritual, the idol of Ganesha is setup on the stage with a big celebration including prayers, songs, and play with colours. The second stage involves puja (prayers) and during the third stage, the idol is taken through the public streets where people take the blessings of the god. At the final stage, the idol is immersed into the nearby river, sea or ocean.

In the past when Sam used to live in India 20 years ago, the idols of Ganesha were made of clay and natural colours. Only a few idols were setup in the entire town. These day there is a statue setup on every street and also the materials used to build the statues are made of artificial materials so they could make bigger statues with light weight. In one city, Mumbai alone it is estimated that people immerse anywhere around 150,000 statues in the nearby water bodies every year. Idol immersion in water used to be an environmentally friendly event with idols made of clay and natural materials. But these days the idols are made of plaster of paris and the colours contain heavy metals like mercury and lead. Even though the government is taking some measures to curtail these pollution causing activities, they seem to slow down at a very slow pace.

Even with the craziness of noise and pollution, like everything else it was a nice festival to experience being in India.