‘GANAPATI BAPPA MORYA’
‘‘Ganapati bappa moraya, pudhchya warshi lavkar yaa’…this is in marathi which means dear ganesha we pray to you and request you to come again next year with lots of blessings and love.
On noticing colourful Ganeshas all around in Gandhi Bazaar, Roma and I decided to venture out to take some colourful shots. By the way we are members of photography club in our bldg called ‘The Sharpshooters’. The sight of colourful idols was so overwhelming that I just couldn’t stop taking numerous shots. It was like a sea of Ganeshas all spread out till the horizon. It was indeed a photographer’s delight. So here are a few pics that I shot and found the ganesha with the mobile phone extremely cute.
I’ve always found ganesha to be the cutest of all forms of God. Ganesh Chaturthi is celebrated with great fervor in our place. My brother stays awake the whole night setting up the mandap (auspicious place) for Ganesha. Every year he tries to do something different for the mandap and the chances are always better if some cricket match is going on especially the day and night series: ))..My dad does the puja with great devotion and in great detail and my mum prepares some yummy traditional food for the festival. Any festival brings the whole family together and that’s what I like about Ganesh chaturthi. We sing aartis, bhajans together with our very own jhankar beats..Laughing and singing at the same time. But these are the very moments to cherish.. My husband Ravi loves to play the manjira (hand cymbals), he can never get the rhythm right..but who cares as long as we are having fun and trust me it is a Cacophony: ))…
By afternoon we all gorge on the yummy food prepared my mum. She generally prepares modaks which are Ganesha’s and my favorite sweet too. I’ve been making modaks for ganeshji since I was a kid. So here’s my recipe for the modak. Many people use puran (mixture of jaggery and boiled chana dal paste) as the filling for modak and steam them. I chose coconut filling and have fried them instead.
You’ll need:
Whole wheat flour: 1 cup
Fine variety rava (chiroti rava): ¼ cup
Salt: a pinch
Oil for frying
For the Filling:
Grated coconut: 1 cup
Jaggery : ¾ cup
Roasted Sesame seeds: 1 table spn
Cardamom: 4 pods
Raisins: 8-10nos
Cashew pieces: 1 tablespn
Ghee: 1 teaspn.
Procedure:
In a pan, add ghee and fry raisins and cashew nuts. Once they are done add coconut and jaggery and keep on stirring till the jaggery melts. One the mixture is uniformly cooked, add roasted sesame seeds to it and then turn off the gas. Add cardamom powder to it and the filling is ready.
Mix whole wheat flour, fine rava, salt, a teaspn of warm oil and water and make this mixture into a dough. The dough could be a little stiff. Keep it for 15 minutes and the dough will soften. Make small portions of dough, roll out small puris and add a teaspn of the filling into it and gather the ends of the puri to form a potli or a dumpling. Deep fry these modaks in the oil and serve them hot with a dash of ghee on them. They taste really good when served hot. So lets all welcome Lord Ganesha with loads of love and sweets.
‘May Lord Ganesha bless you all with his choicest blessings.’
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