Tag: puja

Celebrating Vinayaka Chavithi, aka Ganesh Chaturthi, has been our family tradition since my childhood. We have continued it in the US, in our own way – which is a quick reading of the story in front of the deity (in our own mini shrine). Uma always makes the standard 3 items – Pulihora (tamarind rice), Vadas and Paayasam (vermicelli pudding) as prasaadam (offering). As the resident atheist, my role is to take memorable photos of the event and partake in the yummy goodies 😊.

We have never been sticklers for the actual date. We’ve done it on the weekend closest to the first day of school. We have continued the tradition of putting our favorite books (or the subject books which we needed most help with 😊 – like calculus or organic chemistry) at the puja (worship). There are a few years when Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens were placed comfortably next to Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens or George Carlin’s Brain Droppings.  One year, Uma was in India, and the kids and I still kept the tradition going, even though it meant reading Amar Chitra Katha’s summarized version of the story.

Ganesh Chathurthi is coming up! You can’t miss it! The Indian grocery stores are packed with Ganesh idols and related saamagri (material used for the puja). Apparently, even HomeGoods is getting in on the action. Although they seem to also be getting a super head start on Diwali (which is not till November 8th).

HomeGoods is going all out for Ganesh and Diwali

I just realized that over all these years, we’ve only given our kids a taste of the Telugu version (and nomenclature) of the festival. Last year my daughter got an invitation for “Bappa’s farewell,” and she messaged me:

“Do you know what they mean by ‘Bappa’s farewell’? Is this someone in their family who died, or something about Ganesh? We are unable to go, but I want to reply appropriately. ”

After I stopped LOLing, I told her that it’s the Ganesh Visarjan (immersion or “letting go” in Sanskrit) and that Marathi people (from the state of Maharashtra) refer to Ganesh lovingly as “Bappa”!

“Ok phew! I truly didn’t know. Never heard of Ganesh referred to as “Bappa” before.  Google said it can mean father or Ganesh. Good thing I didn’t reply saying “sorry for your loss” 😅 “