The festival is celebrated in the memory of how Lord Shiva killed Lord ganesha by cutting his neck off, as he was stopping Lord Shiva from entering his own house while Parvathi was taking a bath. Lord Shiva did not know that Lord Ganesha was a creation of Parvathi for guarding the house when she was taking a bath. After seeing the headless body of Ganesha, Parvathi was broke. Seeing this, Shiva, ordered his men to bring the head of any creature that is lying with it head in the South direction. They only found an elephant doing that and got its head. It was then attached to Ganesha’s body. This is how he has the elephant head.
When Parvathi first made Ganesha, she made him out of flour. Not out of Plaster Of Paris or some non-biodegradable material. We celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi in memory of this incident and another incident where the Moon, on lord Shiva’s head, laughs at Lord Ganesh’s huge belly. What we learn from this festival, is that we shoulnt laugh at anybody and hurt their sensitive feelings. We are not taught to use POP or white cement to make huge idols and dump them into the local water body to pollute it and to filter and purify the same later for consuming.
It is nowhere said that the bigger the idol, the more blessed we are. Then why use such huge structures and pollute??? Why use non-biodegradable stuff to make these temporary structures??? Why uses the old, left over last year’s idols for our puja this year??? Cant we use the small, fresh, mud idols nd go on with the small scale puja...
The essence of the festival is to worship an idol for a short time and immerse it on the 10th day of the puja. Let the idol be small or big!!! Then why pollute the water using these big, huge structures which dont even dissolve in water!!!!
Cant we just keep it simple? Cant we just use a small, mud idol and pray whole heartedly? Wont we be blessed if we do it?? The small scale, eco friendly festival!!!!
The idol can be made up of so many eco-friendly, bio-degradable products like the Indian clay, paper mash, Salt, etc. These dissolve in water, once immersed, and merge with the water and the soil, causing minimum damage to the environment!!! The mud idols are available in the morning of the festival!!! They are freshly made in front of our eyes and, like in everything else, the fresher, the better!!!! And when we see it being made in front of our eyes, the experience is amazing.. Let us use these eco-friendly idols to make our festival more ethinic and natural.Why cause damage to our society and make life miserable for the next generations. Let us do our part in keeping the earth Green!!!!
