Ganesh Festival – 2017 – My Photo Blog

It’s been a great journey of capturing photos of Lord Ganesh during Ganesh festival for past six years. This year it was a special celebration as I along with my family visited the city of Lord Ganesh – Pune. The city is known for origin of Sarvajanik Ganesh Festival and has its own share of rich history. This festival was celebrated at homes during regime of Chhtrapati Shivaji Maharaj and Peshwas. According to Wikipedia, in the year 1892 Bhausaheb Laxman Javale also known as Bhau Rangari, installed the first sarvajanik Ganesha idol in Pune. In 1893, the Indian freedom fighter Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak praised the celebration of sarvajanik Ganesha celebration in his newspaper, Kesari, and dedicated his efforts to start the annual festival into a large, well-organised public celebration^[1]. Through this celebration, he wanted to unite people and inspire them to fight for freedom.

Pune being the cultural capital of Maharashtra, brings out the best colors of cultural fabric during Ganesh Festival. Most of the mandals across the city display decorations, organise cultural events and eductional programmes during the celebrations. All known Ganesh mandals are located in the heart of the city. The large number of devotees visits the city to take blessing of Five Manache Ganpati and Dagduseth Halwai Ganpati. The five Manache Ganpati comprises of Kasba Ganpati, Tambdi Jogeshwari Ganpati, Guruji Talim Ganpati, Tulshibaug Ganpati and Kesariwada Ganpati. These mandals have the honour of being the foremost among other idols during the immersion procession. On the way, we also covered other Ganesh mandals such Jilbya Maruti, Hutatma Babu Genu and others.

Two days after coming back from Pune, we attended the Ganesh Visarjan at Ganesh Ghat in Kalyan as we didn’t want to miss darshan of Ganesh Idols of Kalyan area.The festival ended well with blessing from Lord Ganesh 🙂

Ganpati Bappa Morya! Pudchya Varshi Lavkar Ya!

Here are some photos captured by me during the Pune visit and Ganesh Visarjan at Ganesh Ghat, Kalyan.

Dagdusheth Halwai Ganpati