Vinayaka Chaviti / Ganesh Chaturthi

Vighna nivarana Vinayaka/Ganesha birthday is celebrated as Vinayaka Chaviti / Ganesha Chaturthi.Vinayaka is also know as the leader of gana's and is prayed for all success in our life. This festival which falls in month of bhadrapada masa is celebrated by Indians all around the world.This festival is celebrated for 11days & at the end we do nimarjana of ganesha.

This festival is also special to me as my grand mother whom I called "Ammaji" was born on this day.She is the grand mom no one can never ever replace.

Coming to todays post for Blogging Marathon festive preparations my Vinayaka chaviti preperations will generally start 2 to 3 days ahead of his birthday. Cleaning home is a main part of the all festivals.Generally I make Vinayaka @home with clay so to do that I have to start with dusting, cleaning & decorating the house just before the festival day. Once the house is clean I will start preparing for pooja the next day.I make Lord Ganesha @ home with clay as shown below.This year I made ganesha & styled him with crystals.

Later the important part of pooja is mandapam & paalavelli. In USA it is hard to get palavelli so I generally make it with new store bought sticks & apply turmeric to it.Later will decorate it with leaves, flowers and fruits.For mandapam many Indian households have a wooden one if not you can replace it with a wooden table which you have never used before. I get birthday caps & use them as a replacement of chatram.

Next comes the pooja items those are flowers, fruits,betel leaves,mango leaves, kum kum, turmeric, sindhoor, sandal wood powder, akshata etc..
In andhra pradesh we generally get 2 ganesha's as one is made of pure black mud (Banka matti or Putta matti) second we get a nice colored ganesha. But the main pooja goes for matti vinayaka & turmeric vinayaka. On festival day we make a tumeric vinayaka for pooja and also a small vinayaka with clay.

As we are all ready with the arrangements of pooja we look for a good time with no rahu kalam & yama gandam on the day & perform pooja to god.We keep books, resumes & laptops while doing pooja.Coming to prasadam or mahanaivedyam I mainly offer Undarallu or Kudumulu along with rice, curries,dal,curd & sweets.

In India we invite guests to house to see ganesha & offer them prasadam & tamboolam.The ganesha chaturthi pooja goes on for next 11days & then nimarjanam. For the next 11days we perform pooja to lord & offer him prasadam like fruits or home made sweets.In general you are suppose to do the nimarjana on odd days & not on tuesday & friday. So calculating according to that we do nimarjana of god. Here is USA we do nimarjanam @sea which is very near to us.The turmeric Ganesha is made to a paste and is applied to kids books & laptops.

The festive preparations may vary from one state to other but the Lord we all worship is same.

Recipe for Undarallu
Yields 11 balls

Ingredients
1 Cup uncooked rice
1/2 Cup channa dal 
2&1/2 Cups water
1 Tbs jeera
1 Tbs ghee
Salt
Making Broken rice
First method: To make undarallu we need broken rice. So to make that take rice & grind it coarsely.
Second method: In this method we wash the rice & dry it on  a clean cloth. Allow it to dry for 8hrs. Rice will be very delicate & it's easy to coarse grind rice.
Making Undarallu
Now take the broken rice, channa dal, jeera,water & salt in a pressure cooker. Cook on medium heat for 2 whistles. Switch off heat & allow it to cool.
Take the cooked rice mix on to a plate.(Rice mix will be very hot so be careful while handling it.).Rub little ghee to your hands & take a scoop of rice mix. Roll it in to a ball.Repeat the same with rest of rice mix.