Ganesha Chaturthi ’10

When we went about campaigning for clay idols, many of them responded saying that they loved celebrating a colourful festival @ home and a clay idol would mean it would lack lustre. That’s when I hit upon this plan of making it festive with 21 Ganeshas to fill in the colour, while using the clay one for the Puja and the immersion. Su was more than happy with the idea and getting ready 21 of them was the next task. I reused only 3 of  the Ganeshas we already @ home and bought all the others – visited every fair/ almost every art-craft store in the city and thankfully, it happened 😉 😉

The Puja-mandap @ home this year 🙂

The big picture 🙂

Legend has it that Ganapati’s Mother Gowri had come to visit her Mom’s place. Ganesha, who feels bored without his Mom around, comes down to the earth to take her back. So, we celebrate Gowri Puja followed by Ganesh Puja every year.  We worship Gowri made of turmeric and another silver one. The big idol is only to add to the festive look.

Gowri and Ganesha

The first of the Ganeshas that I reused – a silver one, presented by my Bengaluru  team-mates for our wedding 🙂

The ones on the wall – Painting by Shruti right at the top and LaVancha Ganesha sent my Smithu 🙂

The other two are sandstone painting on the LHS and palm leaf engraving from Orissa on the right – Bought them from Shilparamam.

Sandstone painting – If u enlarge , you can see the granular nature of the painting.

Palm-leaf engraving – Puri temple deities in Ganesh-Avatar.  Check out the trunks 🙂

One side of the arrangement!

Got a pair of lamps with a Ganesha adorning them at the top. This one from Shilparamam too 🙂

Ganesha made of Bamboo roots – Art from Tripura – Bought this one @ a North-East fair.

One in stone, from Kalanjali

Lord Ganesha writing the Mahabharatha –  Again from Kalanjali

This one is a set of musician Ganeshas. Bought these at the North-East fair.  They are in one of my favourite art-forms Dokra.  This particular set I got to know was made by Banda tribals from Mayurbhanj district of Orissa. The person selling this explained to me how it is done and also how he has to go deep into the forests to get them from the tribes. Most of these are made by the wives of the Naxals.

The other side!

Again, a gift from the wedding day 🙂

This one from Pixie 😀

Another one in Dokra –  Ganesha as Lord Krishna.

I lovvve such musician sets. Another one in terracotta. Bought them from the North-east fair; these are from Assam 🙂

The best thing about the festival this time was we had more than 50 people visiting us, with so many little Gowris and Ganeshas at that 🙂 We were extremely happy, esp. in a city which has been home only for about 3 yrs now 🙂  I hope it remains so *touchwood*

The bamboo baskets for haldi-kumkum.

Hmmm. So thatz it for this year 🙂  Su has already decided the theme for the next year – Himalayan backdrop with Lord Shiva and family is his idea for now :mrgeen:

Have a gr8 week ahead 🙂 God bless!

P.S: The bookmarks that I was talking about in one of the previous posts.

P.P.S: I ws lazy enuf to copy-right all my pics here. Nonetheless, it’s totally OUR [me and Su I mean] efforts behind all the arrangements and OUR photography skills too. So, pls beware before u copy! Am hoping Lord Ganesha takes care of the trespassers 😉 😉