Bappa Morya!

Ganapati Bappa - Morya ||

Mangal Murti - Morya ||

Ganapati has a special place in every Hindu's heart in Maharashtra. Come Ganapati festival my memories take me to my childhood days in Pune, and there in our housing society we used to have ten days of "dhamaal". We were about a dozen boys of same age group and some elders in their twenties, who used gel up very well with us.

Preparations for Ganapati used to start a week before Ganesh Chaturthi with contributions. Then came erection of Ganapati "mandav" (which was done by elders). We used to have the same Ganapati idol every year (as is the practise in Pune), along with a small idol, which is later immersed in water. After returning from school and after getting refreshed I used to dash directly to the Ganapati mandav, where everyone used to assemble at the end of their working day. Then came activitities like cleaning and decorating the mandav. Girls on the other hand used to enjoy rangoli and garlanding for the lord. As I used to go to bed quite early, my day usually used to end after Ganesh arti - around eight thirty. Arti used to be fun, with guys fighting for bells first and then usual pranks. Prasad distribution after arti was another attraction. I used to like distributing prasad, which used to be voluntarily sponsored by different families.

Once during the period of ten days we used to have games like musical-chair and passing-the-parcel. I remember having won a beautiful flower-pot in a musical chair competition, that within a couple of days somehow fell on it's own and was shattered to pieces. Another occassion worth a mention was in the game of passing-the-parcel. In this game participants sit to make one big circle and a parcel, usually a soft toy, is passed on and on until the music is played. The person in whose hand the parcel happens to remain when the music stops, picks up a chit from a bowl and has to follow the instruction therein. I always used to be a bit afraid as to what I would be come to me. I always used to put myself in place of the person picking up the chit, thinking how I would have handled that part. On one such occassion a girl, a bit elder to me, was told to recite a TV advertisement. As per my habit, I quickly came up with Nirma ad (now I wonder why Nirma ad, I used to like Nutramul ad those days) in my mind. But the girl asked for time to think and was permitted to recite the ad in the next round along with the next person. She recited a very simple Onida ad later - "Neighbours envy, owners pride". I thought over this; as to who doesn't remember a TV ad! Why did she ask for time and chose an ad in which she hardly would mess up with. I thought it is more about building one's image in the public. When my chance came that year, I was asked to seek the blessings of all elder to me by touching their feet. Guess those blessings are still helping me!

Then finally on the day of immersion, we used to have all household Ganapati's from our society join us to engineering college boat club, hardly a walk of about 20 mins. With it came bursting of crackers and lots of fun. I used to like the boat club. Have a lot of good memories associated with it, of that of my engineering days as well.

Ganapati was one off many festivals celebrated by our extended family together. I should say that only truly blessed people get first-hand experience of all this.