ganesh wall photos

O Ganesha, avert this environmental catastrophe!

Isn’t it ironic that a beloved deity symbolic of new beginnings and removal of obstacles has clogged our lakes and tanks and littered our coastlines? Traditionally, Ganesh or Ganpati idols were made of earth, which dissolved easily in the water in which they were immersed during visarjan. Over time, as the magnitude of celebrations grew, mud and clay made way for Plaster of Paris, a cheaper and lighter gypsum-based binding material that degrades very slowly. Also, the vegetable dyes that were traditionally used to color idols were replaced with chemical-based coloring agents and lead-based paints, which leach toxins into the water causing serious health hazards. On the eve of Ganesh Chaturthi, we raise a familiar question again: Should we celebrate at such great cost to the environment? Or will you make a small but significant difference this year?

Yahoo! India News – Tue, Aug 30, 2011

• tweet18
• Share1
• Email
• Print

REUTERS/Mukesh Gupta

An artisan applies finishing touches to an idol of the Hindu elephant god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, in Jammu. Though earthen clay was traditionally used to prepare the idols, it has now given way to cheaper and lighter Plaster of Paris. The cost to the environment, however, is much higher. Unlike clay, which disintegrates naturally in water easily, Plaster of Paris degrades very slowly and remains for days in the water.

AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade

The ten-day-long Ganesh Chaturthi festival, marking the birth of Lord Ganesh, is celebrated in September. Crowds of devotees take idols in procession to be immersed in water bodies, bringing entire cities to a standstill. Traditionally, soil taken from near the devotee’s home was used to fashion the idol and its immersion in water symbolized the natural cycle of creation and dissolution.

REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

Plaster of Paris has replaced earthen clay as the preferring material for constructing Ganesh idols. Bulk orders are taken over a year in advance and it takes months to complete fashioning the idols. Some variations of plaster contain powdered silica or asbestos, which may cause serious health hazards if inhaled. Asbestos inhalation has been known to cause cancer, as well as asbestosis, a chronic respiratory disease of the lungs. Inhaled silica can cause silicosis, making affected people susceptible to tuberculosis.

AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade

Ganpati Utsav is arguably the most important festival in Maharashtra. While observance of the festival dates back many hundreds of years, it was the nationalist and freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak who revived it on a grand scale in 1893. Millions celebrate the festival and Ganpatis of all sizes ranging from the diminutive palm-sized to colossi mounted on trucks are taken in jubilant processions for immersion in large water bodies.

AFP PHOTO/ Manjunath Kiran

A Ganesha idol gets a lick of paint. Idols were typically colored with vegetable dyes and natural colors. Of late, they have given way to brighter and more colorful chemical paints, which contain heavy metals like mercury and cadmium. Exposure to these chemicals is fraught with health hazards for the artisans along with the potential risk of polluting water when the idols immersed.

AP Photo/Channi Anand

An exhausted young artisan sleeps in divine company. Thousands of artisans slave away at sweatshops in the months leading up to the celebrations. They work with constant exposure to asbestos and silica dust and toxic chemicals in paints.

AP Photo/Channi Anand

A finished idol awaits a buyer in Jammu, northern India. Paints containing oxides of mercury, zinc and lead are applied on the idols together with "thinner", a petroleum product. Ganesh Chaturthi is celebrated as the birthday of Lord Ganesha, who is widely worshiped as the god of wisdom, prosperity and good fortune.

AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A

A schoolgirl admires a creative interpretation of the Ganesha idol in Hyderabad. The idols will be immersed into oceans and rivers at the end of the festival. In the city of Mumbai alone, an estimated 1.91 lakh idols were immersed in 2010.

AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade

A gigantic Ganesh idol is readied for the dais. The decorated idols are placed in enormous marquees known as pandals over a ten-day festive period marked by worship and cultural celebrations. At the end of the festival the idols, some even larger than this one, are immersed in large water bodies.

AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade

Nearly every Hindu family in Maharashtra keeps an idol of Ganesh during the festival period that lasts ten days. Here, a family takes its newly purchased idol home by local train. This year, municipal authorities and non-governmental organizations have been campaigning for the use of idols made of eco-friendly materials. This family seems to have missed the bus. Maybe next year.

AP Photo/Dhiraj Singh

Devotees prepare to immerse an enormous Ganesh idol in the Arabian Sea on the final day of Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai. They are joined by millions of others across the state and the rest of the country.  In an important step towards sustainable celebration, some families and organizations have taken steps to symbolically immerse a reusable metal idol in a pot of water at home. The same idol will be reused the following year.

AP Photo/Ajit Solanki

Devotees immerse a Ganesh idol in the Sabarmati River in Ahmedabad. Though the demand for idols made of clay and natural materials have been high this year, supply has not caught up as making idols from clay takes longer. Further, clay idols cost more.

AP Photo/Ajit Solanki

A Ganesh idol joins thousands of others being immersed in the river. A study conducted in the Ganga River in the aftermath of the similar immersion of Durga idols during the Pujo festival estimated that the total amount of paint submerged in the river was approximately 15 tons. They caused the levels of heavy metals such as mercury, chromium and copper and zinc sulphites to increase by as much as 20 times the normal between October and January. Only during the monsoon, when water levels rise in Indian rivers, does the level of pollutants diminish.

AP Photo/Ajit Solanki

A man searches for reusable items amid immersed idols of the elephant-headed Hindu God Ganesh in the Sabarmati River. Action groups in Mumbai insist that there is a silver lining amid all of this: In 2009, 8,383 household idols were immersed in artificial ponds. In 2010, they maintain, the number grew to 13,866.

AFP PHOTO/Noah Seelam

Schoolchildren paint idols of Ganesh made with earthen soil with natural colors in Hyderabad. In Nagpur, eco-friendly Ganesh idols made of natural materials and colored with natural dyes are available at Kheteshwar Mandir, Gandhi Bagh and at Chitnavis Centre. The Goan Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, seen by many as a saffron right-wing group, has gone green by banning the use of Plaster of Paris idols and props in celebrations this year. Their contention finds basis in the Hindu practice of using sattvic (pure) materials for worship. In Ponda, also in Goa, eco-friendly idols have been made using waste paper from used jap pustaka (prayer books). They are painted with edible palm oil which dissolves easily in water. We hope you are inspired. Happy Ganesh Chaturthi! 

• tweet18
• Share1
• Email
• Print

Read More

ganapati story / ganesh chaturti

Read More

ganesh chaturthi

Large idols such as this are seen all over Mumbai during the festival

Two to three months prior to Ganesh Chaturthi, artistic clay models of Lord Ganesha are made for sale by specially skilled artisans. They are beautifully decorated & depict Lord Ganesh in various poses. The size of these statues may vary from 3/4 of an inch to over 25 feet.
Ganesh Chaturthi starts with the installation of these Ganesh statues in colorfully decorated homes and specially erected temporary structures mandapas (pandals) in every locality. The pandals are erected by the people or a specific society or locality or group by collecting monetary contributions. The mandapas are decorated specially for the festival, either by using decorative items like flower garlands, lights, etc. or are theme based decorations, which depict religious themes or current events.
The priest, usually clad in red silk dhoti and shawl, then symbolically invokes life into the statue by chanting mantras. This ritual is the Pranapratishhtha. After this the ritual called as Shhodashopachara (16 ways of paying tribute) follows. Coconut, jaggery, 21 modakas, 21 durva (trefoil) blades of grass and red flowers are offered. The statue is anointed with red unguent, typically made of Kumkum & Sandalwood paste . Throughout the ceremony, Vedic hymns from the Rig Veda, the Ganapati Atharva Shirsha Upanishad, and the Ganesha stotra from the Narada Purana are chanted.

Ganesh Visarjan in Mumbai

For 10 days, from Bhadrapad Shudh Chaturthi to the Ananta Chaturdashi, Ganesha is worshipped. On the 11th day, the statue is taken through the streets in a procession accompanied with dancing, singing, and fanfare to be immersed in a river or the sea symbolizing a ritual see-off of the Lord in his journey towards his abode in Kailash while taking away with him the misfortunes of his devotees, this is the ritual known as Ganesh Visarjan. At individual homes the Visarjan is also done on 3rd, 5th or 7th day as per the family tradition. All join in this final procession shouting "Ganapati Bappa Morya, Pudhachya Varshi Laukar ya" (O lord Ganesha, come again early next year). After the final offering of coconuts, flowers and camphor is made, people carry the idols to the river to immerse it.
The main sweet dish during the festival is the modak (modagam or modakam in South India). A modak is a dumpling made from rice flour/wheat flour with a stuffing of fresh or dry-grated coconut, jaggery, dry fruits and some other condiments. It is either steam-cooked or fried. Another popular sweet dish is the karanji (karjikaiin Kannada) which is similar to the modak in composition and taste but has a semicircular shape.
Public celebrations of the festival are hugely popular, with local communities (mandalas) vying with each other to put up the biggest statue & the best pandal. The festival is also the time for cultural activities like singing and theater performances, orchestra and community activities like free medical checkup, blood donation camps, charity for the poor, etc.
Today, the Ganesh Festival is not only a popular festival, it has become a very critical and important economic activity for Maharashtra. Many artists, industries, and businesses survive on this mega-event. Ganesh Festival also provides a stage for budding artists to present their art to the public. The same holds true for Hyderabad and Chennai too. In Maharashtra, not only Hindus but many other religions also participate in the celibration of Ganesha festival like Muslims, Jains, Christian and others. This festival has managed to re-establish the unity among the Indians during British Era.

[edit] Outside India

Dancers on the streets of Paris during the 2009 Ganesh Chaturthi festival

Ganesh Chaturthi is celebrated in the UK by the migrant Hindu population as well as the large number of Indians residing there. The Hindu culture and Heritage Society, UK - a Southall based organisation celebrated Ganesh Chaturthi for the first time in London in 2005 at The Vishwa Hindu Temple. this festval is of 11 days and on the last day ....Bold text^[9] Annual celebrations also take place on the River Mersey at Liverpool.^[10][11]
The festival is similarly celebrated in many locations across the world. The Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh USA, an organisation of Hindus based in the US organises many such events to mark the various Hindu festivals.
In Canada, Ganesh Chaturthi is celebrated by various associations of Marathi speaking people. (MBM in Toronto, MSBC in Vancouver etc.).
Celebration of Ganesh Chaturthi in Mauritius dates back to 1896. The first Ganesh Chaturthi Puja was held in the 7 Cascades Valley next to Henrietta village by the Bhiwajee family who is still celebrating this pious festival for more than a century.
Over the years the festival gained such popularity on the island that Mauritian government has attributed a public holiday for that day.

[edit] Environmental impact

Lake contaminated with Plaster of Paris Ganesha idols

The most serious impact of the Ganesh festival on the natural environment is due to the immersion of icons made of Plaster of Paris into lakes, rivers and the sea. Traditionally, the Ganesh icon was sculpted out of earth taken from nearby one’s home. After worshipping the divinity in this earth icon, it was returned back to the Earth by immersing it in a nearby water body. This cycle represented the cycle of creation and dissolution in Nature.
However, as the production of Ganesh icons on a commercial basis grew, the earthen or natural clay (shaadu maati in Marathi) was replaced by Plaster of Paris. Plaster is a man made material, easier to mould, lighter and less expensive than clay. However, plaster takes much longer to dissolve and in the process of dissolution releases toxic elements into the water body. The chemical paints used to adorn these plaster icons themselves contain heavy metals like mercury and cadmium.
On the final day of the Ganesh festival thousands of plaster icons are immersed into water bodies by devotees. These increase the level of acidity in the water and the content of heavy metals.^[12] The day after the immersion, shoals of dead fish can be seen floating on the surface of the water body as a result of this sudden increase.^[13]
Several non governmental and governmental bodies have been addressing this issue. Amongst the solutions proposed by various groups some are as follows:

• Return to the traditional use of natural clay icons and immerse the icon in a bucket of water at home.^[14]
• Use of a permanent icon made of stone and brass, used every year and a symbolic immersion only.
• Recycling of plaster icons to repaint them and use them again the following year.
• Ban on the immersion of plaster icons into lakes, rivers and the sea.^[15]
• Creative use of other biodegradable materials such as paper mache to create Ganesh icons.
• Encouraging people to immerse the icons in tanks of water rather than in natural water bodies.^[16]

To handle religious sentiments sensitively, some temples and spiritual groups have also taken up the cause.^[1

Read More