Ganpati Bappa Moraya

This is the chant i grew up hearing every year when the elephant god was brought to our homes with much fanfare and celebration. Ganesh Chaturthi is a very big festival like all the others :) and celebrated in a big way in Mumbai.

There are huge pandals with varied themes and decorations ranging from mythology to current events and huge Ganesha idols preside over all of these. Throngs of devotees wait for hours in long queues to catch a glimpse of their favorite god, participate in the aarati and partake prasadam.

For me and my dear, this is an important festival as Ganesha is our favorite God. So, like every year we celebrated the festival this year also. The highlight was i prepared the entire Neivedya without any help :-). Here's what I made.
Clockwise starting with salt, poori, potato-peas sabzi, tomato chatni, hesarbele kosambri, papad, steamed modak, fried modak, basundi, and rice-dal. All the dishes turned out well and we had a good lunch :).

Many things have changed, some for the better. We no longer immerse the idols in wells, lakes etc, but in a bucket in our house. My little one was thoroughly excited, fascinated, and amused with all these customs. He loved every minute of it and refused to budge from his position in front of the idol. We finally managed to convince him that bappa had to go back to his house and he agreed :-).