Ganapati bappa morya...

     Ganapati bappa morya mangal murti morya.... Every where we can hear this ,today and for the next 11 days. It's the time we welcome ganeshji with love and affection. Let me start from the very beginning a very good place to start ,Why do we really celebrate this festival ? Lokmanya Tilak started this festival that we call sarvajanik Ganesh utsav. The reason behind this occasion was that British put a rule on Indian during the revolution period ,we Indians were not allowed to be in a group anywhere as they did not want the freedom fighters to meet and plan their revolutionary moves, if they were found in groups they would be arrested,so it started becoming difficult for freedom fighters to meet . Britishers would never interfere with our religious functions ,that's how this utsav was created it was called a sarvajanik utsav means a festival for all people. 1 place was decided where all the people would meet and celebrate this festival and it also became a meeting place for our freedom fighters to plan their next moves without the Britishers interfering . We got our freedom but we still continued celebrating this festival as it was a good way for everybody to meet .

       I have grown seeing and enjoying this festival.  I have seen this festival turning from sarvajanik utsav to political utsav to individual utsav. When we were kid we had 1 common pandal where everybody visited ,prayed and had cultural events. it was truely a sarvajanik utsav . Then as we grew we started seeing different political groups having different pandal .we saw friends becoming rivals ,each 1 trying to make their Ganesh pandal more bigger and more commercialised . Ganapati became bigger and more expensive. Clay ganapati turned to pop ganapati ,organic paint turned to toxic paint . The noise level increased ,every possible pollution level increased. Soon each pandal collecting funds for their pandals became a big hole in the pocket for business people and individuals ,I am sure many agree with me though many may not accept it as in India we fear god ,people fear it so much that they think if we say a no for anything to do with religious purpose will make god angry and he will punish us, but seriously why should we be god fearing ,instead we should be god loving and god does not hate or punish his children. Anyways coming back to Ganesh utsav ,what we see now is sarvajanik Ganesh utsav has become individual house festival. Each individual gets The Lord to their homes . So what is actually happening today is everyone is so busy running from one home to other to take darshan that we actually have no time to meet each other at all. It's become more a formality than a utsav. It's lost all it's fun. Few days before ganapati we can hear people only say "arre yaar have to go to 10 different place will be dead tired", "don't know what excuse to make for not going to so and so house","what ganapati was just running around so much had no time to actually see or pray." Funny a sarvajanik festival has become just a festival now.

       Then comes the bigger day ,the visarjan day ,the day we bid goodbye to ganpatiji ,we send him off with same enthusiasm as we got him to our homes, with the same amount of love and affection we put him into our ponds,lakes and sea hoping he meets Mother Earth  again , but does he really meet Mother Earth. We put him in water and don't even turn back to see what is his state after the visarjan. The same idol that we get to our local pandal and our homes becomes nothing but a pile of garbage the next day of  the visarjan . Sad Reality of this festival. The after effect of this festival is worst ,the roads where pandal are made have big holes ,and so  much garbage is created, and how can we forget the traffic jams. Life becomes a big chaos for all.

       I hope the sarvajanik Ganesh utsav comes to its original form. A festival for all and for that we do not need 100 ganpati's but 1 ganpati for each area ,we do not need ganpati in each lane ,each bylanes ,each bylanes having 100 different groups with different ganpati and each home having a separate ganpati .This festival was made to unite us Indian not separate us. 

        We need to remember it's called Sarvajanik Ganesh Utsav ,not just Ganesh utsav.