Pillayar welcomed with religious piety, novel displays

CHENNAI: Vinayaga Chathurthi, the birthday of the Elephantine God, considered to be the remover of all obstacles, was celebrated on Monday across the state with religious fervour and traditional gaiety.

Tens and hundreds of temples of Lord Ganesha across the state, were given a facelift and tastefully decorated and illuminated for the week-long festivities starting from Monday.

All the temples across the state opened as early as 4 am in the morning and special abhishekams and poojas were performed to mark the festival. A large number of devotees thronged the temples, which witnessed milling crowds right throughout the day.

Thousands of people were seen queuing up to offer prayers for their favourite ‘Pillayar’ on the auspicious day to seek wisdom, knowledge and absolution from past sins. Special music, cultural events and Annadhanams (free meals) were also provided to the devotees. People thronged markets from Sunday evening to purchase clay idols of Lord Ganesha along with an umbrella and the traditional ‘Arugamboo’ (flower) garland.

150 kg kozhukattai for Uchi Pillayar

‘Sweet Kozhukattais,’ a cooked rice flour dumpling filled with coconut and jaggery, which is considered the favourite food of Lord Ganesha, was prepared at almost all the houses and offered to the Lord as prasadam.

As has been the practice every year and that has been taking place for more than three decades -except for two years during the COVID pandemic -a giant 150 kg kozhukattai was offered to Sri Uchi Pillayar and Sri Manicka Vinayagar ensconced in the famous Tiruchy’s Rockfort Sri Thayumanaswamy Temple.

This age-old recipe has been tweaked during the celebrations since 2007 at the two temples. Instead of the regular dumpling, the ingredients of the sweet’s outer cooked rice dough parcel and fillings are mixed and steamed together.

The ‘kozhukattai’ here is supersized to 150 kg and the offering was halved into servings of 75 kg each for distribution to devotees at the two shrines on this auspicious day. It was made with 60 kg of jaggery, 50 kg of rice flour, 30 litres of clarified butter (ghee) and six kgs of shredded coconut and all would be combined with about four kg of cardamom, nutmeg and sesame seeds.

Novel idols installed

As has been the norm every year, the festival was celebrated by installing thousands of idols of various hues and sizes across the state. The idol makers, who come out with a novel theme every year, highlighted the success of India’ Lunar Mission by making Lord Ganesha with the model of Chandrayaan-3.

In Salem, Lord Ganesha emerges out from a giant coconut, in which the top half is being lifted for the Lord to give darshan to his devotees.

Tight security in place

Tight police security have been provided in all the places were the idols were installed.

Tamil Nadu Director General of Police Shankar Jiwal said 75,000 police personnel were deployed on security duty for the idols, which would be taken in a procession and immersed in sea and other water bodies identified by the police and district officials on Sunday next (September 24) marking the culmination of the week-long festivities.

In Chennai, a total of 1,343 idols of Lord Ganesha of several sizes and in various avatars were installed in various parts of the city. Round-the-clock tight police security were being given to all the idols across the state.

Governor RN Ravi and leaders of various political parties extended Vinayaga Chathurthi greetings to the people of the state.