Ganapati Bappa Morya...

Being in Bombay during Ganesh Chaturthi time is exciting. Hindus follow a lunar calendar so each year this festival falls on different dates. This year Ganesh Chaturthi started Saturday Sept 11th. This festival is celebrated with more vigor in south India than in the north; so yes, Bombay, Maharashtra, is south India. The day before Ganesh Chaturthi is known as Haritalika Tritiya and many families perform a puja (ceremony) on this day as well. Like most things in Hinduism, there are no set-in-stone rules for how to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi.

If you have a Ganesh at home, in Marathi it's known as 'Ganapati basowla' literally meaning that Ganapati has been 'seated'. Families choose to seat Ganesh for different lengths of time: 1-1/2 days, 2 days, 5 days, and then 11 days. If you don't seat a Ganesh at home, it's tradition to go visit friends and family who have. After the Ganesh puja is the visarjan where the idol is then immersed in a flowing body of water.

When bringing the Ganapati home and then during visarjan is when there is more than usual chaos on the streets. On Wednesday Sept 15th night, it was visarjan time for the 5-day Ganapatis and the traffic all over was pretty bad; I got stuck for an hour and half en route from Sion to Dadar.

Here are some photos of Ganapati darshans (viewings) I attended this year. This one is at my uncle & aunt's place.

This Ganesh was at a friends' place. They'd chosen a peacock theme for their decorations this year.

Some other friends had origami flowers (see on right) offered to their Ganapati.

Another Ganapati we saw was decorated solely with purple and white orchids.

And this is at my music sir's wife's parent's place.

They also seat Gauris (aka Mahalakshmi) that are Devis (female gods).

My uncle & aunt also celebrated Ganapati & Mahalakshmis this year. They sent me a photo of their beautiful set up.

There's a lot of talk re: visarjan and the toll it has on the environment. Most Ganapatis are made with Plaster of Paris, not a material that quickly disintegrates and bio-degrades. Now many people have begun to follow one of two 'green' practices. One - use a Ganapati made from unfired clay. Two - use a silver (or other precious metal) Ganapati and symbolically immerse it in a bucket at home. Fellow tweeter @nomdeb forwarded this blog to me that has photos of the effects of visarajan, on the day after.

For more information about Ganesh Chaturthi, check out the wiki site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesh_Chaturthi