Ganpati fervour has caught on in the City of Nawabs and for the first time, the 10-day festival is being celebrated in Lucknow on a large scale.
Ganpati pandals have been put up at over two-dozen place sin the state capital and the biggest of them is at the Ramadhin Utsav Bhavan.
The Ganpati idol, dressed spectacularly in a silk attire embellished with traditional gold and silver jewellery, is placed in a pandal decorated in yellow.
Mr Satish Agarwal, general secretary of the Shri Ganesh Prakatya Samiti that has organised the pandal, says that the footfalls of devotees are increasing by the hour. “There are about one lakh people who visited the pandal for Ganpati darshan and we are now holding Bhajan programmes every evening after aarti. We have also got people from Mumbai to prepare modaks because there are no traditionally prepared modaks available in Lucknow as yet.’
At another Ganpati pandal organised by Sai Sewa ashram, the idol installed is an eco-friendly one and use of plastic products, including carry bags, is banned inside the pandal.
Suresh Prajapati, an idol maker, says, “This year we hade more orders for Ganesh statues than for Durga idols. For us, this time of the year is spent in making Durga idols but this year we are working double shifts to cope with orders for Ganesha idols. We have orders for Ganesh is different sizes — from an eight-inch statue to six- and eight-foot statues. The maximum number of buyers is those who bring Ganpati home.”
Rajiv Sharma, a software engineer, who started bringing Ganpati home for three days since last year, admits that he was inspired by visuals of Ganpati festival in Maharashtra. ”I thought that in north India we worship Ganpati before doing an auspicious work so we should also bring him home. We bring him home for three days but we want to celebrate the festival on a bigger scale from next year,” he says.