A truly enchanting festival - Ganesh Chaturti

It is only when there is a festival round the corner that I think about the festivities in India and start missing home. Other wise, I am contended to be away from the chaotic happenings in India.

 I have nostalgic memories of Ganesh /Pillayar Chaturti from my childhood days in Madras. A day before Ganesh Chaturti, my sister Lakshmi and myself used to accompany my father to the market and get our little Ganesha home. Only small sized Ganesha idols made out of wet clay would be available. In fact, the road side vendors used to make Ganesha idols right in front of our eyes by pressing wet clay on to the Ganesha mould. He would insert two red-black beads for eyes. My dad would also get a small paper umbrella for our Ganesha and we used to look longingly at others who bought beautiful umbrellas made out of colourful threads.

Back then I remember arguing with my father,” Dad, can’t we get the colourful and polished idols like they do in Bombay.” On retrospect, I feel the wet clay Ganesha is more eco-friendly than the colourful ones. Even before the Ganesha Pooja , Luxs and me would argue as to who would get to use the paper umbrella after the immersion - ‘visargan’


In Madras, Ganesh Chaturthi used to be a private family celebration and so on the day of the festival, we used to have a pooja for Ganesha, My mother used to make lots of sweet and savoury modakams (Khozhakkatais) for Ganesha. Hats off to her patience, for Luxs and myself never really helped her. But given a chance, we were willing to gobble even 108 modakams each. The best part of the festival was getting to taste modakams from all our near and dear ones homes. Luxs and myself would fight for the savoury modakams and leave the sweet ones for others. The day after Ganesh Chaturti, we would throw the clay idol into the well and continue fighting over the small paper umbrella.


The colourful Ganesha idols and the beautiful umbrellas I buy now and modakams I make can’t match up to the ones I enjoyed as a little girl. These festivals always evoke my memories of the simple pleasures I enjoyed as a kid.