Showing posts with label Manmad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Manmad. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Ganesh Chaturdashi special trek to Ankai - Tankai

The Ganesh festival is one of the biggest festivals celebrated in India. There are crowds all over a city during the 10 days of the festival, which peaks in the last 2-3 days and all main roads in the city get closed for vehicles, to make some room for the crowd walking from one place to another to see the decorations made by various groups (Mandal). The highlight of the festival is the Ganpati Procession (Miravnuk) that takes place on the final day - Anant Chataurdashi.  So unless you want to see those decorations or want to see anything from traditional Dhol - Tasha Pathak in the procession to people dancing on the beats of rowdy hindi film songs, it is not the place for you.

Me and my friends have been going to see this procession since we were in school. We used to go on Laxmi Road at night around 8 - 9 pm, the main road from where all the groups take their Ganapati for immersion and witness the huge crowd gathered there just to be part of the whole festive atmosphere. Wherever you look around, be it the road, railings, footpath, balconies and any open space in the buildings on the road, there is crowd. We used to wait for the very well known and well respected Ganesh Mandal, Dagdusheth Halwai to arrive at the Laxmi road, which never missed its 6 am timing, and then only go back home.