Gowri Ganesha - Eco Friendly Celebrations

These days its the Festive Season and Gowri Ganesha Festival (written the way it is said in Kannada) at its peak. With the preparations in full swings at everyones home, my mom told me a way they celebrated the Festival in her home town.

This year Gowri as well as Ganesha celebrations came on the same day. But mostly Gowri celebrations happen atleast a Day earlier than Ganesha Festival.

So on the Gowri celebrations day, the ladies and girls of the village would go to the river bed early morning and the Priest of the Village temple would conduct the initial pooja (Sankalpa / Sankalp as it is called). After the Sankalpa, the ladies and girls would 1st pray to the river and then from the bed of the river collect wet sand and tie it in a cloth. This would symbolise Gowri. With appropriate salutaions and pooja they would take this Gowri to their homes and worship her.

In some houses, Gowri would be made of Turmeric.  They would dissolve turmeric powder and create small triangular shaped object and atoint it with red kumkum at the center.

For Ganesha, the men and boys would also go to the river bed the next day early morning. There the same Sankalpa would happen, and then they would pick up the wet clay from the river bed and each household would create Ganesha from the clay. After that they would take this to their homes as Ganesha for worship. However the interesting part was, since these Ganeshas were hand made, most of the households would keep Ganesha for just a day, so that the Clay does not dry up too much and there are no cracks. Because, in Hinduism Gods Idols have to be perfect. Hence they would immerse the Ganesha on the same evening along with Gauri.

Life was so simple those days and had more enjoyment. But to think of what we do today in the name of celebrations, that was sure a Eco Friendly way of celebrating Gowri Ganesh.