Hyderabad gets ready for Ganesh festival

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad city is fully geared up to welcome Lord Ganesha, the most celebrated festival in the state and the city would be reverberating with chants of Ganapati Bappa Morya from Tuesday.

While Khairtabad Ganesha stands as the tallest elephant God depicting the avatar of Dwadashi Aditya Maha Ganapati (Sun God), every nook and corner and residential complexes have also installed idols and interestingly the preference for eco-friendly Ganeshas, small and big, has increased this year.

The demand for eco-friendly Ganesha is also said to have gone up in other towns of Telangana. Footpaths in all the colonies of Hyderabad city have virtually been taken over by fruit and flower vendors, sellers of clay Ganeshas.

Sweet shops are competing with each other in preparing theme-based sweets though 'moti choor laddu' continues to be the fast-moving sweet.

Sweet shops are competing with each other in preparing theme-based sweets though 'moti choor laddu' continues to be the fast-moving sweet.

Notwithstanding rain since afternoon, people have been thronging the markets to buy 'patri' (different varieties of leaves), fruits and flowers that are offered to the elephant God.

Not just markets, but even shopping malls witnessed huge rush. It is said that the demand for ethnic wear and kurtas have gone up this time.

However, the vendors have been making a killing this year. A six-inch clay Ganesha was sold around Rs 250. Similarly, different varieties of leaves which constitute the main puja material were also being sold for about Rs 200.

The Ganesh Utsav Samiti, Khairtabad, has made fool-proof arrangements for smooth conduct of the festival as they expect a huge turnout this year since the idol is said to be the tallest in the country. About 60 CCTV cameras have been installed. Governor couple ESL Narasimhan and Vimala Narasimhan will perform the first puja around noon on Monday.

Singari Sudershan Mudiraj, chairman and founder of the committee, said Maha Ganapati would bless the state with copious rainfall, peace and prosperity.

The Khairtabad Ganesh mandap turns out to be the cynosure of all eyes every year.

"This mandap was started with a small Ganesh of just 1 foot in 1954 by S Shankaraiya, a freedom fighter. From then on, the height kept on increasing and it got to an astonishing 60 feet in 2014.