Tilak Nagar Ganapati, Sept 2012

Yesterday we travelled 50km one way to attend a house warming ceremony. We were travelling home bound by 11.30 p.m. when Ganapati Bapa blessed me by drawing towards the celebrations happening on the Community Hall of Tilak Nagar, Chembur. 

Flower decoration which caught my attention :-

A fairy tale Chariot model at the entrance which gives a quick idea of how the amusement world is going to be inside the mandap. Children looked cheerful seeing this chariot and the fairy tale house like structure made covering the community hall of tilak nagar and making them more excited to see their favourite characters coming live inside.......

I never ever imagined that I could get a nice darshan of the Lord there.  Tilak Nagar Ganapati is one of the Mumbai's famous ganapati mandal aka Maharashtra Ganapati of Shiv Sena. The Lord is seated majestically in an airconditioned mandap surrounded by whole lot of cartoon characters. 

After crossing the main entrance to the mandap here is how the path looks like..... Bees welcoming the cheerful children and adults.

Yes, this year's festival is known as 'sahyadri' and the theme is 'sahyadri Kid's world'. So there were lot of children who also patiently stood in the queue along with their parents all through the night to catch a glimpse of their favourite fantasy characters and Lord Ganapati. The queue was huge. Luckily with the help of a known face who is also a member of the mandal i could by pass and enter the middle of the queue (isn't ganapati bapa so loving making it easy for me to have a quick darshan of him?)

Lion King

Mermaid & sea horses, Penguins with waterfall in the background

Chota Bheem....

The famous Doraemon

A fariy tale model

Wait makes sweet things even more sugary. So here is our famous & majestic Tilak Nagar Ganapati Bapa.

Due to the weekend rush, there was a typical chaos which you commonly see in big temples. The Police & Security personnel were more into crowd management and shouting 'Pude chalo' in Marathi like the Tirupati 'Jarugu'

So with a content heart happily started our homebound journey ............

Ganapati Bapa moriya, Mangal Murti Moriya!

Chaturti Celebrations 19th Sept 2012

This year the celebration was not elaborate. Kept the pooja simple & offerings simple as we had plans to visit some famous ganapatis in our city. This time placed my Cold Porcelain Ganapati with Popsicle Umbrella made by me for pooja.

Offered beetel leaf, nuts, turmeric, fruits, mix fruit + flattened rice flakes, milk kheer and mahaprashad (rice + jagger).

We started after the pooja but could not see the famous ganapatis because they were open to public only after 7.30 pm as final touch of decorations were going on. So on invitation from a friend, we went to their place to attend the pooja for the Ganapati installed in their complex. It was very interesting to see the decorations made for ganapati at various homes.

Ganapati is seated in his chariot drawn by 7 mooshiks lead by the chief fat & big Mooshik.

Though we could not have the darshan of famous ganapatis, our heart is fulfilled with joy that we could take part and have darshan of this ganapati. Took the prashad and we started our return journey towards home sweet home seeing Ganapti of different sizes, postures were taken in procession on the road.

May the vignaharta remove all obstacles and bless you all with a happy & prosperous life.

Ganapati Bapa Moriya, Mangal Murti Moriya!

Ganapati - Cold Porcelain craft

Om Maha Ganapathaye nama :

 

Inspired by cold porcelain works, I tried making the clay at home.

I tried many doll tutorials given in the net but didn't turn out satisfactorily. So tried my favourite Ganeshji. A god who is very simple and his form is so easy to draw or mould.

To make cold porcelain clay at home check this beautiful website. I followed stove stop method.

The idea for the idol I got from this wonderful link

The umbrella making tutorial you can check out here 

1. Popsicle Umbrella
2. Umbrella for Ganeshji 

I used an empty deo bottle's cap to seat my Ganeshji and formed the lotus around it.

 

then the mooshik who will be seen always with Ganapati Bapa

colour using acrylic pearl colours (this gives a shine)

 Ganapati Bapa Moriya, Mangal Murti Moriya

Popsicle Umbrella for my Ganpati

Sharing with you another fun popsicle project. An Umbrella.

You will need :

1. Popsicle sticks - 5 Nos
2. Yarns of different colours
3. Glue gun
4. thermocol balls / beads
5. Clay
6. Empty colour bottle
7. Acrylic Colours

Procedure :-

Arrange 3 sticks as show in the picture below to form the top part of the umbrella

Make the stick support for the umbrella by joining two sticks as shown in the picture

now when the 3 sticks you have arranged earlier has dried up, tie the yarn and wind it around the stick and take it to the next stick, wind around it...so on. the pictures that follows may give you an idea.

Now using glue gun, attach the top portion to the stick. decorate with beads / thermocol balls

Stuff some clay inside an empty colour bottle. Place the stick and cover the bottle with clay by rolling out it using a rolling pin after dusting the surface with talcom powder.

let the clay dry for 2 or 3 days. Then colour it.

Now a beautiful umbrella is ready.

I made it for my ganpati bapa for this chathurthi. ....will be making a post on it soon.