People watching at Ganesh Visarjan in Mumbai

Sharing a couple of shots of people busy at the Ganesh Visarjan in Mumbai this year. The first is a shot of a young man looking for his friends who were supposed to meet him at Opera House but had disappeared after reaching there. This is no surprising as the place is really really busy and its tough to stand at one point for more than five minutes...

The second shot is of a volunteer with one of the pandals. The police present at all junctions do their best to speed up the procession while the participants try and walk as slowly as possible, stopping often to dance and pose for cameras :)

However, its not just the last day when people get busy, but the work starts months in advance. For smaller domestic celebrations, the work often starts from the time the idol is purchased and establish dat home. However, for more public celebrations, there is much to be done. The work on Ganesh pandaals start a few months before the actual event, along with work on the groups that perform there - especially the dhol groups.

In Pune Ganesh Chaturthi has been celebrated as a public event right from the time of Shivaji. However, with the downfall of his empire these celebrations also slowly stopped. In 1893 Lokmanya Tilak revived this tradition and since then it has only grown as a huge public event, especially in Mumbai and Pune.

ganpati ganapati ganesh visarjan 2015 mumbai 2014 men male man
Where are my friends?
ganpati ganapati ganesh visarjan 2015 mumbai 2014 men male man
Can we slow down please?

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