Ganesha

Flower seller

Clay idols

Starting today (Wednesday Sep 19th ) and continuing for another 9 days is the Ganesha festival. Ganesha is a god, son of Parvati and Shiva, whose head was cut off and replaced with an elephant head. He is the 'remover of obstacles'. Suresh, who cooks me breakfast and cleans the apartment offered to take me on a walk to show me the preparations for the festival. We walked about half a mile down the road and saw several vendors selling colourful flower garlands made of orange and yellow marigolds, plus other assorted leaves and other flowers which will be used to decorate the Ganesha idols later in the day. I bought some flowers and a couple of clay idols - about $1 each.

Lord Ganesha

Back at the apartment complex Suresh showed me a giant Ganesha that was being prepared. I came back later and saw it all decorated and lit up. There were many offering of food and money around him - I gave 20 rupees hoping that would bring me some luck on my project at work! The people looking after the Ganesha gave me some lemon rice and some indian sweet which were offered to Ganesha then was given out to anyone who dropped by. Back at the apartment I placed the clay idols & flowers in the prayer room beside a picture of Ganesha & said a silent prayer for my family - well, no harm in trying.....