Devotees bid adieu to their favourite deity on fifth day of the Ganesh Chaturthi Festival

By Eugene Moodubelle
Bellevision Media Network

Dombivli, 15 September 2010:  Ganesh Chaturthi is a twelve days long festival in general. However, there are different phases during which the idol of Shri Ganesh is immersed in water bodies such as wells, lakes, ponds, rivers, creeks and even sea. The devotees reverently welcome Shri Ganesh to their homes or housing societies for certain number of days as they have promised or vowed. In  most cases the Shri Ganesh idols brought by families are immersed after one and half day (12th September), after three days (13th September), after five days (15th September), after seven days (17th September), after ten days (20th September) and finally on the Ananth Chaturdashi day (22nd September).

 

This reporter covered the immersion (visarjan) of Shri Ganesh idols on the fifth day on Wednesday, 15th September 2010 from 5 pm to 7pm in Dombivli. By the time this report is being written the visarjan or immersion process was still going on. According to a report, devotees come to the pond or river bank with their idols even till 11 pm.

 

In most of the instances, devotees carry the small idols in their own hands and proceed along with the small band of their family or housing society members; some take the idol in carts, others in rickshaws or even in cars depending on the economic and social status of the family of the housing society. Once reaching the destination, the families offer final prayers and perform ‘arathi’ before handing over the idol to the volunteers who then take in the middle of the pond and take it to the bottom an d leave it there.

 

 

Many families and housing societies proceeded to the Rethi Bunder on the bank of the Ulhas River where arrangements for the visarjan of Shri  Ganesh idol have been made by the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation. The road leading to the Rethi Bunder is quite good with proper lighting arrangement. At the place of the immersion,  a proper roofed  shelter has been put up where the devotees could keep the idol and offer final ‘arathi’. The volunteers take the idols and keep them on a make shift raft which is moved further away from the bank with the help of strings  and immersed. It is a volunteer service for which devotees pay some amount as per their wish. There was sufficient security arrangement at the place of immersion.

 

In the picturesque background of the colourful sky and vast water mass of the Ulhas River, Shri Ganesh idols were taken to the deep and were immersed. A kind of gloomy and sad look could be observed on the faces of the  devotees as they bid final adieu to their favourite deity with a hope that he will come back again next year.

 

The festival of Ganesh Chaturthi is still on and there will be three more phases of the immersion rituals on 17th, 20th and finally on 22nd   September 2010. The last one on Ananth Chaturdashi being the most  spectacular and grand visarjan especially at the Chowpatty beach in Mumbai where the huge images of Shri Ganesh from various Sarvajanik ganeshotsav Mandals including that of ‘Lalbaugcha Raja’ will be immersed with great fanfare and emotion.