Ganpati Bappa Morya Pudchavarshi Laukarya! - A Ganesha Chaturti Festival

Ganpati Bappa Maurya! - A Ganesh Chaturthi Festival

Like every year I celebrated Ganesh Chaturthi inmy hometown, Mumbai. Unlike every year, this year, I couldn't wait to see dearBappa leave us to come back again. I got to stay only for the first day ofChaturthi which is also known as STHAPANNA. I have visited many Mandals andhomes of my friends and family during this day. I could feel that excitementand affection in the sweet, jolly, happening smell of those houses which Ivisited on the first day of the festival. One can say this is the atmosphere intypically every festival house or during any festival season, however it wasdifferent this time and it was definitely different from every year becausefrom past 2 years due to pandemic people were unable to celebrate any festival.Another thing I was surprised to experience so uniquely about festival is foodthat I ate at different houses tasted better, people were more joyful than usual,Lord Ganesha idols were more beautifully crafted. This experience seems to beover exaggerated for the listeners however the same is true because for pasttwo year these people couldn't celebrate the festival and many had lost thetouch of cultural celebration. I could feel the energy in Mandal of GSB Mandal,LalBaugh ka Raja and few other local Ganpati Mandals, they had differentvarieties of prasad and dakshina. Crowd management was better this time, aspeople participated in large number for these organisations. In one my friend'shome there is ritual of keeping another Idol of Maa Gauri along with LordGanesha which is called Gauri Ganpati. It is a 7 day festival where women fromneighbouring houses are called for prayer. Men are not supposed to be part ofthis prayer ritual usually. The last day of the festival i.e the 11thday, is the Ganapati Visharjan, on this day the dear homely lord Ganesh givenus hope to leave with a sad goodbye yet to come back again another year.