For the first time I heard a lord being referred by his devotee's name

Dagdu Sheth Ganpati is the most popular phrase in Pune - I doubt, you will hardly find any local who would not know about this. Ask anyone in Pune, where to go to see the Ganpati festival, they will tell you to go to Dagdu Sheth Ganpati. Dagdu Sheth is the name of the person, a famous Halwai (sweet) maker, who after loosing his only son to the deadly disease plague, incepted the deity of Lord Ganesha with his wife Lakshmibai, to save their family. And then this is being celebrated since last 129 years, and counting.

This is the permanent temple but then they move the Lord for the 10-day Ganpati festival by building a replica temple in a grand way. And it's not an easy task, especially when the lord wears millions of dollars of jewellery.

I went twice to capture some good snaps, but the crowd was huge and their volunteers will not let you stand for few seconds as well. You can see the deity is being guarded by an armed security personnel along with live CCTV surveillance. The reason is that, the deity is adorned with several kg of intricate gold ornaments symbolizing the divine glory. In fact the idol as well as the jewellery are insured for several hundred thousand dollars as well. The temple trust is the richest trust in Pune, by the virtue of generous donors and devotees - to give an example, in 2017, a Pune jeweler donated a 40-kg jewellery collection valued more than $1800000. They undertake several social initiatives to worship the Lord through its service to humanity. They do have a dedicated website where you can even have live darshan and much more : https://www.dagdushethganpati.com/

The trust was also selling beautiful mini replicas of the idol in the festival. And I believe, they had this special rituals which must be highly paid and pre-booked.

And look at that - trucks of coconut donated by devotees - I believe at least five by one person at one go, because that is how it was being sold.

And if you are wondering what happened to Lakshmibai , wife of Dagdu Sheth, then this whole place is named after her - LAXMI ROAD. It's the traditional part of the city where the celebration happens that makes one delightful with a meditative state of mind.

The crowd was pretty huge, a person carrying her daughter on his shoulder to just click some photos - innovative thinking. I discovered a nice sweet stall just at the backside of the temple - made me more hungry.

That instant energy from sweets inspired to move ahead to see some other celebrations around - you can find a Ganpati pandal in every neighborhood.

There were crowd everywhere and carnival-like procession along the busy thoroughfares. This seemed to be a permanent temple and look at the big container placed there. It was fun seeing people throw money to go inside that.

Coming back had some light lunch at a veg restaurant to help me enjoy the rest of the day.

And then headed to Tulshibaug - which has the most beautiful and appealing idol. On the way, there is a lane full of shops selling imitation jewelries - seems most people who visit love to buy these.

Kind of a mini trade fair with lot of crowds, one shop was pretty interesting.

Curious me asked the shop keeper, why these are sold and what I came to know is that, this represents Goddess Gauri and people buy these and worship only during this festival. They are not cheap as well, sells for almost 80 - 100 $. And here comes the huge 14 feet idol at Tulshibaug.

Believed to be established in 1901, this idol is adorned with splendid silver jewellery from head to toe - yes its all real silver.

And look at the outside decoration, it was grand too. What I loved about this place is that, people were very devotional to offer their prayers and that is what makes our culture unique. You can see the prayer from public in the video. Then roamed around to see some other idols.

Rain disrupted the celebration for some time, but then as you can see these Dhol-Tasha groups were all over the place, determined to celebrate even in the evening.

You can see how the same Dagdu Sheth pandal has been decorated with lights.

People were not leaving the place and at one point, I could not find out a way out to come back.

Tried to look for an auto or cab ,but then all roads were closed and could not find any. Ola / Uber did not help because mobile network was not working properly, this is how you feel the pinch of technology at times. After roaming around several lanes, found an auto, who charged two times the regular fair but I was happy to find him and without any hesitation, boarded it. This was definitely a memorable event of life time. Enjoy the rest of the videos, that I promised to post in my previous blog - I was truly delighted with the spirit of people of Pune to celebrate the occasion in such a grand way. Never did I see a lady riding a Camel coming on a procession, ya, you can see it yourself in the video (around at 5 minutes 2 seconds).

And it took a lot of time for me to compile this post, but this along with my previous post forms an epic experience that adds to some unforgettable moments of my life. Someone told me that the final Immersion procession that happens on the last day is more fun, but unfortunately I had pre-booked my return tickets. Now that you know it, if you plan to visit Pune by any chance during the Ganpati festival then make sure, you stay for that final day.

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