Transcript

Sheetal

Hi I am Sheetal, Welcome to 3TB. All of us are busy and welcoming Ganpati Bappa into our home, we decided therefore we will give this week Podcast and instead create small Episode which is our Ganesh Chaturthi special.

So as the part of this small Episode, so what we thought we will share some of the information and interesting facts about Ganesh Utsav, some of you might already know it, but the historical perspective of Ganesh Utsav especially the Sarvajanik Ganesh Utsav the public and community celebration, lies in late 1800s and many of you would be aware that it was started by Bal Gangadhar Tilak and idea was very interesting that Britishers have started this whole ban around social gatherings and the only things that was exempt from that Ban were religious gatherings and that is the reason why Muslim of that Era they could congregate for Friday Prayers, but incidentally there is no such option for Hindu Gathering because there is no such event weekly or monthly. Bal Gangadhar Tilak decided this the way and he started the whole Sarvajanik Ganesh Utsav and got away with large Hindu Gathering for 10days of the celebration and it gain popularity from there on.

If we trace little before that also, what I have read is Peshwa capital was Pune City so Peshwa’s use to celebrate Ganesh Utsav in Pune but in its true form what we see today there are different Mandals and they try to do Ganesh Utsav, that form was started by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, so I thought I will share some Historical prospective around this Festival.

It is very interesting, infact I came across this whole piece in Better India and then I research it that there was Shrimant Bhausaheb Rangari is the guy who did Ganesh Mahotsav in Sarvajanik Variety, 2yrs before Lokmanya Tilak but obviously very correctly Lokmanya Tilak is the person who kind of scaled it, so he was the one who took it forward, so cut to the Ganesh Mahotsav of today has come after 2.5yrs and some very interesting anecdotes starting from, couple of days back I heard of there is a huge Traffic Jam of 1lakh people in Chinchpokli because there is Chintamani loving God was coming home after 2yrs, infact the other thing world famous in Mumbai is Lalbagh Raja so that have become so popular that CNN has carried an article, infact there is an multi step guide that they have published on what you need to do, shockingly 2cr people are expected this year, that is the population of Mumbai.

Again there are 200 from the tech of it, there are 258 CCTV camera watching from the side, very important is be careful in which line you are in, because there is 1 line which is 5-6hrs just to go and see face of Ganpati but there is another longer line for 15hrs where you get to touch his feet, so if you are in wrong line so be aware. Other thing you could do is buy a house in Lalbagh because there is a special line for 5000 people who live in that place.

Samiran, I did not know about the numbers so just to put in perspective 2cr is 20million which means whole of Scandinavia, I think Sweden is 10million, Norway and Finland are 5-5 each, so you are talking about Norway, Finland and Sweden visiting.

Yes, it is just crazy.

Alternately you just watch it from the comfort of your house, because this year so Lalbagh Raja actually has on the platform you can watch the entire ceremony from the unrevealing of the Ganpati to the Visarjan on Virtual reality, so all you need is Virtual reality headset and you could watch every single Aarti, Pooja, from the comfort of your home, you could stand for 12hrs or you could just do what I would do, which is watch it from the comfort of my house. Which also brings me to the fact that we think about all of that have happen in last 2yrs and suddenly there are so many apps and platform, so I came across these really interesting ones you can get Pandit from ghar ka Pandit, you can get Pooja essential from Om Namo, you could even get how to do the Pooja, one is to get essential items for Pooja but how you do the Pooja that kalnirnay Ganesh Puja teaches you how to do it, and they give you audio-video instruction on actually how to perform Pooja.

I only remember kalnirnay be a calendar.

Correct kalnirnay from the calendar it is even today one of the most popular calendars, it is also giving you how to do the Pooja.

But what I thought is amazing is if you are not a Maharashtrian like I am not and if you still want to do Ganpati Puja there is Arti guide Pro so that is another app which allows you to play all the Arti and learn, so it does not matter how uninitiated you are, you can do all the celebration just using all the Tech available in the world to make it really fun.

Infact what is happening is cop is using whole out of the tech just to manage this crowd, during Visarjan time they have drone up and huge amount of CCTV, in Telangana they have started Jio Tagging each pandal, so there is crazy amount of tech which is getting deployed and in Pandemic Virtual Puja was everyone doing it, so huge amount of tech bring devotee close to God.

Little bit, typically as we think about Ganesh Chaturthi and Ganpati we usually think of ETAs as Maharashtra been the centre of it but what is interesting Samiran is that, in Bengal there are so many Pandals which are coming up so it is no longer about Ganpati Festival been only Maharashtra centric it has became so much larger, you have it across the country, there are 5-7 states celebrate it as large as Maharashtra does it and that is quite phenomenal.

In India I always struggle when I talk to western about Indian Holidays and we always have these set of holidays 8-9 which are national but there are these regional holidays and Ganesh Chaturthi is one of the regional holidays, so every region has its own specific festivals but you are correct Karnataka, Gujarat, Maharashtra have big holidays.

One of the great things of Gods and Festival in India is there is a great power over commerce and economics, I remember E-cash have come out and they were struggling for adoption, the one thing was the big driver when they introduce their coupons that can be used for donation to Siddhivinayak Temple, that is when it kick off their whole app and Siddhivinayak Temple is leading adoption of technology because I live there in COVID they had put a display over the road where you can see the God and do the darshan virtually so you don’t have to go in temple and mix with crowd, so I think God is the leader in adoption of technology.

He is also the leader in economics, I mean the amount of business that flourishes thanks to festivals, they are talking about couple of 1000cr which are going to happen, spend, buys, etc, infact I was reading which says Retail is booming most people are seen pre-pandemic levels of shopping when it comes to festival. So, I think it also bring certain amount of joy, hope all of that along with it and that’s what makes the economics, festival good for any country.

This brings to end of short Ganesh Utsav Special Episode of 3TB, one of the reason why we took this route because one was Ganesh Utsav and celebration that are going up and other was we are on this happy note we will be starting new theme, so let Vighnaharta Help us with new theme for next 3-4 Episode and this theme is going to be interesting it is Technology as it is used in Arts, we will be talking about Music, design, graphic design and even Books, so stay tune, we will have interesting guest coming over as part of this theme.

So, if you like our Banter so please share this Episode and follow this show, we are available on all major Podcast platforms, if you are apple podcast then please leave ratings and review it will help, until next time. Ganpati Bappa Moriya!!