Ganesha Chaturthi

It is that time of the year that the most beloved lord of the Hindu pantheon celebrates his birthday. Known as Ganesha Chaturthi, this festival is one of the most joyous celebrations in India and in all places where Hindus reside. And when there are Hindus, Ganesha is always present there. In fact, He is equally prevalent in Buddhist Thailand, Loas, Cambodia and Vietnam. In Malaysia, lately the Chinese too have fallen in love with this adorable deity who endears to just about anyone.

You may already know of His origins and how he got his elephant head but there is another related legend that explains why Hindus are advised not to look at the moon on the fourth day of the full moon. It goes something like this:

"Ganesha is very fond of sweets ladoos. On one of His birthdays he was going around house to house accepting the offerings of this sweet.

Having eaten a good number of these, He set out moving on his steed, the mouse at night. Suddenly the mouse stumbled as it had seen a snake and became frightened. This caused Ganeshji to fall down.

His stomach burst open and all the laddoos came out. But Ganeshji stuffed them back into his stomach and, to keep the laddos firmly there, He grabbed hold of the snake and tied it around his belly.

Seeing all this, the moon in the sky found it extremely funny and cracked up laughing. The moon remarked that not only Ganesha was a strange creature with an elephant head, His big, fat belly was now split,

This unseemly behaviour of the arrogant moon annoyed Ganesha immensely and so He pulled out one of His tusks and hurled it against the moon, and cursed that no one should look at the moon on the Ganesh Chaturthi day. If anyone does, he will surely earn a bad name."

In India, especially in Mumbai and other northern states, huge effigies (like in the last pix) of Ganesha are paraded down to the ocean and finally immersed in the running waters. It is one big parade and whole communities get together to send the Lord home on his birthday!

May you be blessed by our dear Lord on His special day!