My dearest Bappa….and the 21 ‘darshans’

It was that time of the year again when I run around visiting many homes, wearing new clothes, devouring lovely sweets, clicking a couple of photos and above all seeking blessings of my beloved Ganu Bappa. The festivities of Ganesh Chaturthi in various households last for anything between one and a half days to 10 days, and I made the best of the celebrations this year.

As usual the first one and a half days were hectic, owing to all the ‘didh diwsache bappas’. 

Darshan started in the morning at Prasanna’s home at Kalyan, followed by the Korgaonkar’s Ganpati at Aditi’s place this year, where I had a traditional marathi lunch with a huge extended family, whom I shall call mine in a couple of months. Then I went over to Bhai’s home (luckily this year Amod and Paulomi landed there at the same time) and after a lot of serious talks with uncle, senseless chatter with both of them followed. From here, me and Yashashree proceeded to Maggie’s place, where the Bappa couldn’t have got cuter and eco-friendlier!! How I loved the hand-crafted personalized Lord that RT n her friends had carved. It was also nice to be meeting Chandru uncle after a very long time. 

The next visit was to my dearest best friend, Reema’s home, I have gradually lost count of how many years it has been since the first time I visited her home, and that visit was also on this beautiful occasion. I suppose it was way back when we were in the 9th standard of school. After Raj uncle generously offered me various fruits and we performed the ‘Sandhya-Aarti’, I rushed to Chintu’s home. It was a super happy occasion at his place this year, firstly Chintan and Nishit bhaiyya are back from UK, once and for all. On top of that Nishit bhaiiya had just got engaged, and happiness was sparkling on aunty’s pretty face! I was glad this time, since I was there last year, and could sense the emptiness in the home as well as the hearts. As each year aunty couldn’t have left me depart without offering me a sumptuous meal!

That was the end of day one. And the next morning, darshan began with Swati’s home, where little Anika greeted us with a cutie smile. The heavy rain outdoors could dampen anyone’s spirit, but hers. She was just so elated at the view of raindrops lashing at her windowpane! After a joyful chat with Sulu kaku and Vivek kaka we proceeded to Meena aatya’s place, where another part (the sweetest and dearest ones ) of the Korgaonkar clan awaited us. More fun followed, and then followed more mouthwatering food…hot ‘ukadiche modak’s ', ‘alu -wadi’s'….simply wow stuff!

From here I accompanied Ro to Eesha’s place, from where the chirpy lady and her parents accompanied us to Vikram Mama’s home. Here was my second day of remembering names and relations…a daunting task indeed; specially considering that Ro himself is confused most of the time! After this I did have some time to rest at home after a quick visit to Paul uncle’s place where I reached in the nick of time before they left for visarjan, and after a few hours I decked myself up again.Hoping to meet Anu ( and of course Bappa at the Bhosekar’s residence) Ro and me went to her place. But then she had left for Vile Parle, so we met aunty, offered our prayers to Bappa and went back to Aditi’s home, for the ‘maha aarti’ before visarjan.

Now this is a super-specialty of the Korgaonkar’s. The whole family, which consist of about (hmn.. now let me count… 3+7+3+10+…..let it be..)...say, twenty five people or more get together to perform the aarti well equipped with various music instruments! Various prayers are offered, and so many Ganesh vandana’s sung with brimming enthusiasm and tremendous joy is bound to please our kind ‘vighna-harta’.

After such a ceremonial end to the first two days of Ganpati, visits to a few more homes were pending. So we made it a point to visit Bappas at Purva’s, Uttam’s, Kaushik’s, Prachi’s homes. And the next day after my visit to Sanket’s place (he was super sweet to have picked me up and dropped me back home!!) me and Maa went over to Pansare uncle’s and Rashmi aatya’s homes were Gauri-Ganpati beckoned us.
After this I suddenly realized that I had already visited 19 Bappas and suddenly had the urge to complete 21 darshans this year. 

And I did so by Friday. After our routine Rotaract meeting a bunch of us went over to Akshay’s home. I just love the very adorable little Idol of Bappa at his place, neatly seated in-between sparkling lights, flowers and several tiny-miny beautiful show-pieces. From here we went over to Aditya’s (Belpathak’s) home. My twenty first Bappa’s visit was here where the Lord was seated in an unconventional ‘mhakar’ shaped like a modak itself.......nice, very nice.