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Live and moving idol dekhavas major draw of Ganapti festival in Pune
Packed in a 10-15 minute performance, “dekhavas” are known for their crisp plots that depict religious stories
The ten-day Ganesh festival is finally upon us and not just prominent Ganapti mandals but even the smaller ones are all set to celebrate it in a big way, given that the past two years saw muted revelry owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. Among the highlights are live “dekhavas”. Packed in a 10-15 minute performance, “dekhavas” are known for their crisp plots that depict religious stories. Further, the crowd is expected to be almost double that during pre-Covid times.
There are around 2,500 Ganpati mandals in Pune city and a majority of them are in the peth areas. Most Ganpati mandals including the five Manache Ganpati, Shrimant Dagadusheth Ganpati, Mandai Ganpati and Babu Genu Ganpati, have been preparing for the festival since the past few months.
Before and during 2019, there was a lack of enthusiasm amongst the mandals as most of them would only install pandals and keep Ganpati idols sans any celebrations. This year however, the picture has changed as nearly all the mandals are having moving idol dekhavas, live dekhavas and decorations.
Sham Mankar, president of the Hatti Ganpati mandal at Sadashiv peth, which is one of the prominent Ganpati mandals in Pune, said, “All our mandal volunteers are excited since the last six months and are preparing for the Ganpati festival. As the festival is being celebrated publicly after a gap of two years, we have made a huge dekhava of Krishna raskrida in which we have 21 moving idols of Lord Krishna and the Gopis around him. There are lights, music and Krishna playing Holi. We have installed a stage of size 25 by 40 foot as per the state government guidelines.”
Similarly, there is great demand for live dekhavas with artists performing plays of 15 to 20 minutes on various subjects. Piyush Shah, president, Sainath Mitra mandal, Shivaji road, said, “It’s the 75th anniversary of our independence this year and so, we decided to have a live dekhava on Subhash Chandra Bose’s contribution to our struggle for independence. There are 15 artists, a majority of them being our mandal volunteers including children, performing in this play of 15 minutes.”
Scholar Anand Saraf said, “For the last two years, Punekars have been witnessing simple Ganapati celebrations due to the strict restrictions imposed by the state government. The five Manache Ganpati mandals along with other prominent Ganpati mandals like Shrimant Dagadusheth Ganapati and Mandai Ganapati would perform pujas at their respective pandals and appeal to the public not to come for physical darshan and take online darshan instead.
Whereas this year, almost double the crowd is expected to come to see the dekhavas, mostly from villages in and around Pune district.”