Welcoming Vighnaharta: Vadodara streets wore a festive look

VADODARA: Hundreds of trucks and vans queued up outside the artisans’ workshops on Sunday as devotees turned up in big numbers to carry home Lord Ganesha’s idol. Barodians were seen doing last minute shopping for decoration of the pandals on the eve of Ganesh Chaturthi. The Ganesh festival is celebrated with much fervour in the city that is home to lakhs of Marathi community members.
Despite rains, the devotees including children danced all the way to the DJ music while carrying the lord home. While big idols usually make it to the Ganesh pandals, artisans making the idols said that the demand for idols made out of clay has gone up in last few days. “Over last couple of years, citizens have begun using clay idols. Last year, 90 per cent of the idols immersed in the artificial lake at Navlakhi were made of clay,” said Anupam Singh Gahlaut, city police commissioner.
The cops have a tough time maintaining law and order ahead of Ganesh Chaturthi. Till a few years ago, the police used to be on the edge during the Ganesha immersion processions that passed from the communally sensitive areas in the walled city. However, the old city area now gets fortified days before the Ganesha festival begins and the cops have to deploy heavy security for the processions organized for welcoming Ganesha idols.
“Earlier, Ganesha idols were brought to the pandals quietly and big processions were organized only on the day of immersions. But over last few years, a new trend of organizing processions complete with DJ music while bringing Ganesha idols to the pandals has begun,” said a senior police official.
“We now have to deploy hundreds of cops to ensure that these processions pass off peacefully, especially in communally sensitive areas. Also, sometimes the routes of these processions are also not fixed so we have to take precautionary measures,” he added. Nearly 80 big and small Ganesh pandal organizers had taken out processions in different areas of the city this year. The Ganesh pandal organizers, in fact, circulate the date and time of the processions days before the festival begins. Thousands of devotees turn up on the city streets to watch the various forms of Lord Ganesha.