7
Sep

Ganpati at Home

   Posted by: gargi   in Culture, Diary, India, Kith & Kin

 

In the tradition that I have been brought up in, Ganpati is a nitya bhramachari (an eternal celibate). His brother Kartikeya has two wives. Legend has it that he is cursed by his mother to wander the shores till he finds a mate.

 

My father, ever the soft hearted, refused to perform visarjan of Ganpati, and thereby condemn him to walk the shores of the sea for ever. So in 45 years of marriage - my folks collected a fair number of Ganpati idols in every shape and size.

If you keep the idol at home, you have to follow due process in taking care of it. It’s not a show piece. It goes into the prayer room and gets taken care of with the remaining Gods.

 

A few years ago ( it could even be a decade ago) my mother threw a fit. No more ganpati’s - there was no room in the prayer room for any more. And, when mom throws a fit, we all tend to listen. it can be fairly harmful to health if we don’t. She decided to make her own every year - that would be dunked in Ganga jaal post the pooja and given to the tulsi plant….

 

So for the last 10 years or so — mom makes these lovely ganpatis’ made of haldi and chandan. Installs it in her pooja — and the following day dissolves it in Ganga jal.

ganapati

(amidst all the flowers is a ganapati made of haldi and chandan)

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This entry was posted on Sunday, September 7th, 2008 at 8:27 pm and is filed under Culture, Diary, India, Kith & Kin. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 comments so far

 1 

Lovely Ganpatis. I love your Mom’s way.

I would ask your Dad to cheer up - Ganpati doesn’t need to walk the shores alone - all he needs to do is migrate to a different part of India and he would acquire two wives :P

September 8th, 2008 at 7:02 am
 2 

That’s wonderful - an instance that demonstrates the flexibility and adaptability of Hinduism. :)

With so much pollution associated with Ganesh visarjan, your mom is probably doing the right thing. I’ve also heard of people using a metal Ganesh statue, symbolically immersing it in a tank/bucket and then re-using it for many subsequent years. Have you heard of Kalpavriksh (http://www.kalpavriksh.org/) and their efforts around Ganesh puja? Check them out. I think both Nita and I have written about this issue from an ecological perspective.

September 8th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
 3 

I agree with Amit on pollution. I think however if he were made with suji or besan and lots of nuts etc, he could experience visarjan into appreciate stomachs later ;-) No? If you do tell your mom this, don’t say I said so. I don’t want to be beaten up ;-)

September 10th, 2008 at 11:20 am
 4 

@lekhni - :) . ah.. but the reason why he isn’t married is coz there can be no woman like his mom…. :) not lack of women !:)

@amit - for mom it serves both the environmental and the religious aspect. after all, she says, parvati created ganesh in the same way. thanks for the link. will check it out…

@shefaly - i am not sure about eating “gods” - i am sure that there is breach of some protocol or the other !! though it sounds lovely. a chocolate ganesha maybe :)

September 14th, 2008 at 8:09 pm

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