Happy Ganesh Chaturthi !
We aren’t celebrating any of the festivals this year as Krishnan’s Chitappa (chachaji) passed away. So I decided to find Ganesha’s around the world and put them together in a blog as a way to celebrate Ganpati Bappa.
Ganpati Bappa is truly a globalised God .. he seems to have travelled across cultures and countries. Read this interesting article from esamskriti – Ganesha – Global God in a Globalised World.
I found a You Tube video that speaks of Ganesh idols found in Mexico. Fascinating.
At the start of this year, we were in Thiruvananthapuram for the Lakshadeepam festival. The day after the festival, we visited Madras regiment’s temple – Pazhavangadi Ganapathy Temple. The vigraha of Ganapathy in this temple is beautiful and very powerful.
One of the legends says that Ganpati is married to Riddhi, Siddhi and Buddhi. Riddhi is prosperity, Siddhi is attainment of enlightenment through “sadhana” and Buddhi is intelligence. These are mostly metaphorical because Ganesha is always considered a brahmachari. Worshipping him gets you Riddhi, Siddhi and Buddhi.
For a long time, I would put Vinayaka’s symbol (In Tamil – pillayar suzhi) on top of my answer sheet or while writing something on a sheet of paper. These days we type things into the computer or use an iPad to write so this practise has slowly gone out of fashion. Krishnan still puts that symbol whenever he writes anything.
For last year’s Ganesh Chaturthi, I had written Happy Ganesha Chaturthi – Think on your feet & the art of Negotiation