Ganesh Festival - The Life Cycle of a Ganesh Statue

The Ganesh Festival is one of my favorites and this year I have seen it from beginning to end. Here's the low down on the life cycle of a Ganesh statue:

It all starts with mud.

In Pottery Town potters start making Ganesh statues six months in advance. They churn out fingers and toes, bellies and trunks and heads.

Eventually all the parts are put together: big and small, painted and unpainted, simple and ornate. Some are funny, some are happy, some are scary.

Ganesh is one of the most popular Hindu Gods: the God of wisdom and good fortune; the destroyer of sorrows and the remover of obstacles.

Every family carefully chooses a Ganesh statue to take home. Villages build "pandals," small tentlike structures, to house a larger Ganesh - where everyone can go and worship Ganesh together. It is very much a festival-like atmosphere. Impromptu dancing and music are very much part of the celebration.

The festival carries on for eleven days. During that time everyone chooses a day (certain days are more auspicious than others of course) to gather together - whether it be a small family or the entire village - and take the revered statue to a lake, ocean, river and immerse the statue in water. Sometimes it becomes a procession with drums and singing and Ganesh's pulled along the city streets on tractors. Sometimes it is a small Ganesh carried in a plastic bag.

At the lake puja usually occurs: some chanting, clapping of hands, ringing of bells and lighting of a flame. A coconut is cracked open and an offering of food and flowers is given.

Finally the statue, be it big or small, painted or unpainted, simple or ornate, is dunked into the water three times and then completely immersed and let go under the water...

where it eventually disolves...

...and becomes mud...

Bangalore Pottery Town

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Last week a group of us went to Pottery Town for a photography course. The last time I really took photos manually was with my old Contax. Since the days of film are long gone, that camera sits back in Canada in a storage locker. Up until last Christmas I had resorted to 'point and shoot' cameras, but here in India where I take so many photos, I wanted more options and the ability to take manual photos again.

For Christmas last year Michael got me my Nikon 5000 and although I like the feel of it, I've been rather lazy, using mostly the automatic setting - basically 'point and shoot.' So when I heard about this photography course to Pottery Town, I jumped at it. Then I sat down and quickly reviewed appeture, shutter and other manual settings.

The course was just what I needed and Pottery Town was such a great little place to take photos. At any time of the year the potters can be found molding their wares but right now it is particularly exciting. Elephant-headed Ganesh statues of all sizes and colors are sculpted in time for Ganesh Chaturthi, the 10-day festival that begins this week.

Every family will buy a Ganesh statue, worship it for the ten days and then at the end they immerse it in a body of water - a lake or the ocean.

We walked around the small village, trying out different settings, trying to get some depth and movement in the photos. All year round the potters make clay cups for drinking, clay pots, masks, and for Diwali - diyas, which are small candleholders. Their wares are on their balconies, in front of homes and on the sidewalks waiting to be sold.

This young man goes to college until 2:00pm and then comes homes and churns out about 500 small diyas a day. He was nice enough to let us take photos of him at work and then even let us get our hands dirty and  have a try - it's not as easy as it looks!