vinayaka chavithi

Today is vinayaka chavithi..we celebrated it successfully with the blessings of baba and lord vinayaka..we celebrated it last year as well, but this year i liked it more...perhaps, it was the time to understand what equilibrium is, last year. We played it on youtube and i found it useful...i was never a fan of technology in spirituality, but this is one where i support whole heartedly...the you tube videos ran for more than 90 minutes, but i liked it...time passed by, we did our pooja, heard the story and somehow my mind slipped into the good old days....my child hood, my parents, my grand parents and my family...

I remember we used to celebrate very seriously...it starts with us kids following our dad to the market place to buy the vinayaka statue...We had this custom of keeping the statue for one year and then doing the nimarjan the following year...So, whatever statue, we bought, we kept it for an year...my dad is very acute about the details and we kids got to see each statue, examine it, the color, the hands of ganesh, their direction and after some examination, he would triumphantly pick one out..We probably did this a few days before the vinayaka chavithi to avoid the crowd...All the flowers, leaves and fruits, we would either buy it on the day of festival...I used to the proud accompice since my sisters were given other tasks,like washing the idols, decorating the flowers and as a guy, you can get away with stuff on festival day...I remember the market used to be crowded and we would be talking to vendors, trying to bargain with them and then filling our bag with all different things....i wonder if anyone knew whether the leaves and grass we got was actually holy, or whether it was some grass from the near by bushes...but, it is INDIA...in matters of GOD, we don't reason, we do it out of faith.

Once we reached home, it was the time for decoration...my sisters and dad would do the work while my mom was busy cooking different dishes...i always remember my mom doing everything single handedly for festivals...we would start the pooja and my mom would sneak out of the kitchen for a brief time to offer her respect and then go back...i never wondered at that time on why she should not be part of this? I almost felt that as a routine and told my spouse to do the same...My dad would sincerely do the pooja while we kids would try to seat ourselves comfortably, offer our pranam to lord ganesha and try to do amateurish decorations with different flowers, leaves and grass...And once the aarthi is over, our favorite part of the festival would begin:story time...Ganesh chaturthi involves doing pooja like other festivals and then read the story of lord ganesha...It goes over how ganesha was born, the fight between the brothers for the honorary title, the rebirth of ganesha and then the much coveted samanthaka mani story...As kids, we wanted to read as much as possible, so samanthaka mani was our favorite story and there were verbal duels between us concerning that....my dad and mom had to play mediator there and carefully divide the story so that each one of us got equal share of the story...After reading the story to our hearts content, we would end the pooja with an aarthi, reading some slokas and wrap our pooja with a sumptous feast that my mom prepared.

I never wondered in all these years on how selfless my mom has been...she would do the toughest job of the day around cooking the dishes, cleaning them and yet never wanted any rewards...she never clamored to read the story nor do the pooja, but instead focussed on doing her duty without any ado...probably, that what ganesha wants me to realize on this auspicious day....remember the sacrifices made by your parents and respect them, upon which you will conquer the whole world  (did i say this used to be my favorite story?)

Omsairam and Jai ganesha!!!!