Thane pandals dazzle with replicas of famous places, social issues

Thane: Whether it is to evoke memories of their traditional extravagant celebrations in the past or to remind devotees of their responsibilities towards the environment, Ambe Ma pandals across the city have embraced innovative themes to add a touch of depth to the Navratri celebrations this year.

While most pandals in the city have created a simple set up of flowers this year, others have gone the extra mile and have created replicas of various famous temples and places. Some have also highlighted social messages like women empowerment, saving the girl child, etc.

Thousands of devotees are thronging these pandals to get a fell of the extravaganza.

MCHI president Ajay Ashar, who has a pandal at Tembhi Naka, said, "Festivals like Navratri have always been extravagant wherein the entire community comes together to celebrate. However, this has been toned down over the years due to everyones busy schedule.

This year, we roped in famous art director Nitin Desai, who created an extravagant palace called Jal Mahal. We added beautiful colours and lighting and intricate work to give it that extra touch. Through this, we hope to remind citizens of the age old traditional festivities."

Meanwhile, another pandaldecided to go traditional by replicating the Jaipur Palace.

"We wanted to keep the theme simple so we decided to go replicate the Jaipur Palace. Goddess Ambe is our mother and she deserves to be treated like a queen. So we constructed a palace for her. The pandal adorns a 7-foot tall beautiful statue of Ambe Ma on the throne.

While some other mandal's took up extravagant themes, others kept it simple with just flower decor. The idol of the goddess is decorated with flowers and lights and a social theme has been highlighted.

The mandal at Gokul Nagar focused on every citizen's responsibility to the environment and our mother earth through their theme this year.

The social causes highlighted were about the importance of water recycling, importance of 30 species of plants, etc. "Trees are essential to us. The felling of trees has been on the rise because rampant civilization. This has led to increase in pollution levels," said, Sadanand Pawar, vice president of the mandal.