Closing of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival

Since past 2 days I have been writing about the celebrations of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival and this is going to be the final part of the celebrations which is the final ceremony of the 2 days festival. Yesterday evening we completed the immersion ceremony of Lord Ganesha, and like day 1 we had again our friends come over to participate with us in the festivities.

This time we did the immersion ceremony a bit different, we did it at our home itself. Every year we go to the beach to do this ceremony, but somehow this year my heart was saying I should do it at home so we went ahead with it. Normally the immersion is supposed to be done by bringing the idol out of the home, it's like bidding farewell to him. So we arranged a bucket full of water and placed it in the corridor outside our home and then did the immersion ceremony there.

Before the immersion ceremony we had some prayer rituals which the priest made us do and our friends also participated in it. Compared to day 1 the crowd was less and hence everything went pretty smooth and fast. Yesterday we had just our close circle join us for the rituals and some few others who could not attend on day 1, and with that also we were around 20 of us. Again my cook was of great help to me, without her managing all this alone would be very difficult for me. Some of the food items we ordered and some of it we made at home. Yesterday we prepared Vegetable Pulao and Corn salad and we ordered some Indian savories from a restaurant.

Through out the day I was at ease, spending my time in prayers, meditation and just doing some home stuff, afternoon I rested up because I knew evening was going to be hectic and I wanted to be fresh. Later in the evening around 6 p.m. all the action started as people started coming over and we had the prayer ceremony.

We had people to take our picture, but we wanted a selfie with our beloved bappa, so here is one.

And a solo

After the Puja and Aarti, then we had snacks served to our guests

After the snacks it was then time for the immersion ceremony. Before that the idol has to be taken over through the whole house which me and hubby did it together.

After going through the whole house we are now ready to do the immersion ceremony.

As we do this we play music and everyone dances to it, we keep showering flower petals on bappa's idol through this, it is a high energy vibe scene and I just love every bit of it.

Here comes the final immersion part, which hubby does it.

In a matter of few minutes the idol has started getting to dissolve. I am making sure the idol is dissolving well.

In a matter of 15 minutes the whole idol got dissolved in the water, it was made of clay so it did not take very long. After which this water I poured it in all my plants. This is my way of celebrating the festival in the most eco-friendly way. After all the rituals were done, then it took me quite sometime to clean up the home as there were flower petals and other things scattered all through out the home. This is the only day when I do not bother about the mess. Thankfully again my cook stayed back for me and helped me in cleaning up everything, so it all happened fast.
By the end of the day I was feeling exhausted and at the same time I happy and sad both. Happy because everything happened smoothly and joyfully and sad because my dear bappa is gone and I feel my house empty again.

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