Ganesha Habba has always been a favourite and an important festival for us.
It was nowhere close to the grandeur of Mumbai, but celebrated in a lot of homes including as communities in apartments / neighbourhoods here.
The planning and the preparation for the day started several days in advance. The markets got in fresh stock of flowers, fruits and of course a wide range of Ganeshas in multi colours and avatars. The neighbourhood Ganesha organisers went from home-to-home collecting funds for the community event. Based on the collections, the event lasted from a day to 10 days and included evening entertainment as part of the celebrations. If funds were short, it became a “Neighbourhood has got talent” show.
Rich pandals had an orchestra by well known groups like Mohan Jimpets, Manjula Gururaj, BK Sumitra OR a concert by other classical musicians .These were the highlight of the evenings where huge crowds gathered to listen to their favourite music. At times we had a harikathe by Gururajulu Naidu, a hasya sammelana or Master Hirannaiah play or a dance performance.The biggest ones like the Bangalore Ganesh Utsava got some of the best artists from across the country. We have enjoyed many a wonderful evening performance from the likes of Jagjit Singh, Shreya Ghosal, Shaan ,Bappi Lahiri , Vijay Prakash, Pallavi and many more.
At home, the festival was like a family get together and always celebrated at our house till my father was around . It then moved on to an uncle’s place. We went to the Jayanagar 4th block market for the festival shopping . The Ganesh would be selected carefully by the uncles and bought home along with all the flowers and fruits . The women folk of the house were busy with preparing the Prasada and some favourite snacks for Him and of course us children. We were so excited about them that we were asked to partake in the preparations, like kneading the dough, going with dad to get more groceries, vegetables on the day. It was a real feast. There was loads of food including kuruku thindi like chakli and kayi kadubu , Holige , payasa ,ambodE ,Kozhakatte made of yeLLu (til) , hoorna (Jaggery/coconut mix) , a dal based spicy one (Khara) all consumed in copious quantity before , during ,after the meal.
On the day, we all got ready for the pooje and waited anxiously for a poojari would arrive at home based on his convenience. He tested our patience. We weren’t allowed to even sniff the delicacies till we finished the pooje and did our minimum number of baskis. The moment we got permission the first round of snacks vanished in a jiffy. Post the meal there was a lot of chit chat and most of the folks tended towards being horizontally inclined. This was the time for the cousins to run out on the streets and play. Towards the evening a lot of our friends gathered and we went around the neighbourhood looking for 108 Ganeshas. “Nimma maneyalli Ganesha ittidhira aunty ? “. This search involved a lot of prasada in the process.
A set of us friends even attempted a community Ganesha celebration as 12-year-olds. We found an empty plot ( it wasn’t too difficult to find one those days), cleaned it up of the parthenium and other weeds. Some of us went searching for poles in abandoned construction sites to erect a pandal with a huge thick bedspread for the top cover. We collected money from people we knew. After of a week of the actual festival a day was chosen as it made more sense economically .The prices would be something we could manage. Responsibilities were set including one of us being a poojari. The poojari’s claim to fame was he knew a couple of mantras and could tie a dhoti without it slipping away for a few hours. We asked the moms to make prasada. Asked one of dads to help us choose a Ganesha and we did all the decorations imitating the ones we had seen at home. We had more than enough prasada for the day since everyone we know contributed by sending something. We spent the time chatting and eating all day long.When someone visited the pandal we all went quiet and the poojari got up and started doing a managalarathi reciting the same two mantras while ringing the bell. Thank Ganesha that most folks did a namskara ,took the prasada ,put money in the plate we had kept for more “collections” and left before we ran out of prasada Or the poojari of his dual qualifications..
Ganesh is that God which many people adore and take the liberty to create their own version. From a Sachin Tendulkar Ganesha to the doctor creating it with their stethoscope as a trunk Or a naturalist using twigs, leaves and flowers to create her own.
The God who is everybody’s favourite.
The God that is invoked to kick start anything auspicious
The God who is the cutest of them all.
The God who comes out on many avatars every year from the simplest to the most complex
Lastly it worth noticing this is the God who blesses all the juice shops in Bengaluru.
same two mantras! strong stuff
A very nice read Vikram. Sad that the current and future generation will not be able to enjoy such a family celebration. (at least has become rare).
I am hoping your next one would take us down the memory lane of Navratri !