It is Friday evening and the sky is blue. Reaching into that sky is a 50-feet-tall statue of Ganesh, watching over the second and final aarti of the day at Dwarka’s Siddhivinayak temple. A priest walks the premises with diyas, bells and a handful of holy water. Devotees kneel and fold their hands. Renu and Geresh, siblings from Meerut who sell prayer paraphernalia at a stall outside, look on with a smile.. They’ve worked here since the temple was erected in 2012, and earn Rs 400 to 500 a day, selling everything from red threads, perfumed water (ittar) and cotton wicks to eyeliner (kajal). Hundreds come to the temple every day, especially during Ganesh Chaturthi, but sometimes they return home empty handed, as mute participants in a festival that migrated recently from Maharashtra to Delhi. Renu and Geresh are only some of the invisible workers in the religious processions. From the idol makers of Sarojini Nagar to young volunteers, many hands work together to transport a Ganesh idol from factories to wholesale markets to temples to its final immersion Thursday. Manisha, an idol maker in Sarojini Nagar, hails from a family that has been sourcing Ganesh and Lakshmi idols from West Bengal, UP, Karnataka and Maharashtra for three generations. “A single person can prepare only 10 idols a day,” says Manisha, detailing a process that involves multiple rounds of cleaning, polishing and painting. Business wasn’t much from 2020 to 2022 due to the pandemic, but this year, Manisha and her mother were able to sell idols worth Rs 8 lakh. Unsold idols, worth Rs 2 lakh, were wrapped in newspapers on the chaarpai by young boys, under their supervision, and stored for next year. Next door, Rajkumar, who is 60 now, remembers helping his family sell pots on the same street since he was a teenager. But his financial situation is dire. “I bought the idols with a down payment of Rs 20,000 and sellers from Kolkata will come soon to ask for the remaining Rs 1,80,000,” he says, adding that usually he, with his family, sells idols worth Rs 1-2 lakh every year. But with the Covid lockdowns, rains and G20 restrictions, customers haven’t come much lately, he said. “If I can’t pay it back, I’ll be blacklisted in Kolkata and nobody will sell to me next year,” he adds. Over at Laxmibai Nagar, young volunteers working to prepare their local pandaal, are not worried about money. They say funds have come from local donations and senior members of their committee. They have been working for over six months to ensure everything is in place, including getting permissions from the Delhi Jal Board, Electricity Board, fire department, police and a local school. Ishaan, a 25-year-old who has been involved in the business for more than a decade, says, “We have built a temporary pond that is 50 feet wide, nearby, to avoid pollution in the Yamuna. once the immersion is done, it will disappear into the ground.” This pandaal, “one of the biggest” in Delhi, according to a volunteer, was started in 1999, soon after another giant celebration was started in the city in Kotla Mubarakpur. Nagresh Narayan Vashishtha, a priest at the area’s Sukhdev temple, says he was once asked by locals why he had brought a Maharashtrian festival to Delhi. But now, doesn’t face those questions as the “area (nagar) belongs to Ganpati”. “We don’t discriminate on the basis of caste or gender, or against anyone coming into the temple and participating, but we maintain we are Sanatani Hindu. We are against any bad treatment on the Visarjan Yatra. No gulaal will be put on anyone who doesn’t want to participate. Nobody will go into offices,” he says. “Twenty eight years ago, no- one here knew of the festival. Now the nagar belongs to Ganpati. All 2,000 shops donated money, no collection was needed. We don’t have a single paid worker, everyone is a volunteer. it’s a nagar utsav,” he adds. “We look for qualities in people, not appearances. After all, he who leaves the fold and returns is the one called Ganpati,” he says.
