artnlight

DesignYatra Goodies

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Tommorrow is the day hundreds of Mumbaikars will welcome home their favourite elephant headed deity. Ganpathy or Ganesha, benevolent god of beginnings, remover of obstacles, master of the arts and literature, lover of food, stays back in peoples homes, in various sized pandals in street corners to the biggest grounds for ten whole days to witness an extravaganza of devotion, fun & comraderie. In this context I have to tell you this little story...

One day in the early 60s a ten year old boy in Bombay, took his dad's car without his permission to Juhu Beach & brought back loads of sand in its dicky to build a little temple for Ganesha. There was hell to pay when his father discovered sand in the car, but well, he had decided it just had to be done. He got a pasting but all the ladies in the neighbourhood prepared sweets to be offered to the newly arrived lord. And the festival was celebrated in style. This continued year after year & the young boy, my uncle, was dubbed 'Ganapathy Mohan' as against the many other Mohans in the area. A committee was formed called 'Young Boys Ganpathy celebrations' and this is its 40th year of celebrating the Ganesh Chathurthi. Meantime my uncle shifted base to Chennai, his Ganesha obviously followed. My uncle doesn't make a production of it and for the rest of the family its only natural that his home should be full of various versions of the god. It is only after i started blogging that I realised this might be an interesting thing to share.

Ganeshas nestle with plants in the balcony.

Naada Ganapathys weilding musical instruments

Niches in the wall hold tiny Ganeshas . We had fun stencilling in this design when i went over this time :) He paints as a hobby & has a huge collection of stencils and an inexhaustible array of art material. A graduate of JJ school of art, he is a communication professional & yes he is directly to to blame for my choice of career.