HINDUS HONOR ELEPHANT GOD AS PART OF 10-DAY FESTIVAL
Devotees in Mumbai bid farewell on Wednesday to the favored elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesh after a ten day pageant to have fun his beginning.
Big-sized Ganesh idols had been paraded by means of the streets earlier than their ritual immersion within the sea to mark the pure cycle of creation and dissolution.
Worshippers sang hymns and danced in processions carrying small Ganesh idols, or ferried towering statues of the deity in vans adorned with garlands of marigolds and roses.
Throughout the annual 10-day pageant, Hindu households worship Ganesh, the god of data, knowledge and success, at their houses and collectively in avenue corners.
All Hindu prayers start with an invocation to Ganesh.
“Seeing the latest state of affairs within the nation, the rapes, the disasters that are taking place, we solely pray that God frees Mumbai of all these. That is all we wish.” mentioned one worshipper, Santosh Jadhav.
A younger photojournalist was just lately gang raped in Mumbai, a case paying homage to the deadly gang rape of a younger college scholar within the Indian capital in December that shocked the nation.
This 12 months’s celebrations happened amid tight safety.
Many worshippers are involved concerning the environmental influence of immersing hundreds of poisonous statues within the sea, particularly on marine life.
Tens of hundreds of idols are immersed in Mumbai alone.
Idol fragments, made principally of plastic and gypsum plaster, wash up on shores and poisonous chemical compounds from the paints pollute waters and poison fish.
This 12 months the town authorities offered synthetic ponds for the symbolic immersion of smaller Ganesh idols.
Among the many converts to eco-friendly immersion is Rajesh Khakkar, a staunch Ganesh devotee.
“Many individuals nonetheless immerse Ganesh idols within the sea, and this may destroy marine life. That is why we thought why not do that new method and make it a convention,” he mentioned.
Individuals are additionally experimenting with clay and papier-mache idols which dissolve in water.
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