12th hour Kojagiri Item

No, no. There is no typo in the subject of this write-up! Keep reading you will understand it. This Kojagiri night I was expecting the typical doodh celebration at D-9. When I came home there was nothing like this. The reason from Birjoo was: “Doodh pilyanantar zop yete ani sakali lawakar jag yet nahi!” Okay no celebrations this time.

Around 11:30 PM I received an SMS from Aparna telling that how they are celebrating the Kojagiri. That’s it. It triggered me. Birjoo told me the probable place where I can get doodh. Of course if there is a will there is a way. Though Birjoo said that if there is a will there is a way but there will not be (open) dukan. Around 11:45 PM I was outside that dukan. But now there is a will there is a way and there is an open dukan but there is no doodh. What to do? Simple! We regularly drink proper proper milk from Chitale milk bag this time we will do something different: we will celebrate Kojagiri with Nestle milk powder! Done!

Next one hour was of full fun celebrating this dynamic Kojagiri. Till the end Suyash was unaware of whether the doodh is a proper proper doodh or a milk powder. This will give you an idea of our quality celebrations (or quality of Nestle product ;-))

Ganeshotsav @ “D-9 Bal Tarun Mitra Mandal”!

Yes … don’t get zapped neither reading the title of this blog nor by entering my apartment at kotharud!
Yes … for the first time in history of D-9 ... its our apartment number :) ... and even in the history of my residence at pune; we are celebrating Ganeshotsav! What I am going to write here is … how dramatically all this started and all the fun that we are having with our Ganapati …

Some time in middle of august I, Suyash and Birjoo were talking about Suyashs trip to Leh … and I don’t know how I came up with the idea of “Ganapati Basawane” at our apartment! And as usual the idea got faded out with the time. Suyash went to Leh … we got busy in our day to day software industry stuff. But in office I was talking about “Ganapati Basawane” and how we used to do this at Nagar ... my native place etc etc.

On the say before Ganesh Chaturthi I was in full swing about “Ganapati Basawane” at our apartment … at least I was talking about this in office. When I came to home I shared this with Birjoo but his reaction was not so +ve :( That’s it. Story ended. (Basically his concern was whether we will be able to manage this or not … which was very true).

Next day … as usual we wake up late … went to Charminar for tea. (Charminar is nothing but a “chay ki tapari” near shivaji putala … the actual name of this tapari is Shivneri but we call it Charminar! Why? Watch “The Angrez”!). I told Birjoo that I am going to Nagar (read this as Ahmednagar hence after :) ) as my Mom called me up for Ganesh Chaturthi. At the same time I received sms from Trupti D., “Basawale ka ganapati baapa?”. My oblivious reply was, “Nahi na … Ghari bolawale aahe … Aata gharich basawato ganapati bappa!” I was all set to go to Nagar on bike …packed the bag … pulled over the jacket … and I am ready!

Suddenly we recalled that we have to pay house rent to our landlord. Birjoo said lets go to ICICI ATM and pay the cash to landlord. We went to our landlords place. I asked Birjoo to wait in parking coz I was supposed to come within next 5 mins.

And hence after the actual drama began ….

I went to my landlord … he welcome me with a Ganeshji ka prashad asked me to wait and have prashad. We were talking about the “Ganapati Basawane” at his place etc etc. My 5 mins got over and so Birjoo came up … Yes usake naseeb main bhi Ganeshji ka prashad tha :) After paying the rent we came to D-9s parking … I said bye to Birjoo as I was going to Nagar on my recently serviced bike: pulsar 150!

Suddenly Birjoo said, “Ghara-malakachya ghari gelyawar, aka seconda sathi mala watale ki apan ganapati basawayala pahije … ” And my reaction was, “tu hech parat akada bolala tar mi bike park karun ganapati basawayala tayar aahe”. And and … you can guess what would have happened next …

I called up Mom; asked her whether we should go ahead with “Ganapati Basawane”. She said we can … just make sure that you do everything with lot of devotion and discipline. We said okay. I prepared a list of items to purchase … starting from table-top, cloth, niranjani, kalash to ganapati decorations. And we started our shopping …. (We love this)

So finally around 5:00 we started the “Ganapati Basawane” even … and … till 6:00 we were done with our first ever “Ganesh Pratishthapana”!!! As usual it was very dramatic but very satisfying. Today I really believed it all happened like “We prayed lord Ganesha and asked that whether we should go ahead with Ganesh Pratishthapana and he said yes go ahead” :)

Now for next 10 days you will see various exciting events happening at D-9: the aratis, decorations, competitions and many more cool events … so stay tuned :)

(I have uploaded couple of snaps here this will give you a little idea about the excitement we had :) ... video will be uploaded soon ;-))

Ganapati Bappa Morya ! Mangal Murti Morya ! !