Cricket Ganesa

[Guest guest]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport3/cwc2003/hi/newsid_2750000/newsid_2756500/

2756589.stm

 

Indians pray to cricket God

 

By Sampath Kumar

BBC reporter in Madras

 

In an apartment complex in Annanagar, a suburb of Madras, KS

Ramakrishnan has built a temple in honour of the beautiful game.

 

The holy shrine is built around the Hindu god Ganesha, but the

elephant-headed deity is seen clutching a bat and ball, hence his

name 'Cricket Ganesha'.

[Guest guest]

This reminds me of a Marathi story book that I read as I was

growing up in Pune. Its title was Osaa.d Waa.diice Deva "Gods

from the village of Osaadwadi. One of the stories related a

cricket match with Ganesh as the batsman and Hanuman as the

ball catcher. One can only imagine the humorous moves of

these two players.

Madhav Deshpande

 

 

INDOLOGY, "V.C.Vijayaraghavan

<vij@b...>" <vij@b...> wrote:

>

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport3/cwc2003/hi/newsid_2750000/newsi

d_2756500/

> 2756589.stm

>

> Indians pray to cricket God

>

> By Sampath Kumar

> BBC reporter in Madras

>

> In an apartment complex in Annanagar, a suburb of Madras,

KS

> Ramakrishnan has built a temple in honour of the beautiful

game.

>

> The holy shrine is built around the Hindu god Ganesha, but the

> elephant-headed deity is seen clutching a bat and ball, hence

his

> name 'Cricket Ganesha'.

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "deshpandem <mmdesh@U...>" <mmdesh@U...> wrote:

> This reminds me of a Marathi story book that I read as I was

> growing up in Pune. Its title was Osaa.d Waa.diice Deva "Gods

> from the village of Osaadwadi. One of the stories related a

> cricket match with Ganesh as the batsman and Hanuman as the

> ball catcher. One can only imagine the humorous moves of

> these two players.

> Madhav Deshpande

>

 

I think creating these funny forms of Ganapati comes from

Maharashtra. Once R. Nagaswamy, the Chola art historian

was highly critical of creating images like these,

and showed me some examples (from a book by Sakuntala

Narasimhan) - walking with an umbrella, sitting in a couch, etc.,

There was a Kargil Ganesa sporting a rifle, ....

 

In the last few years, the Vinayaka Chaturti celebrations

public processions of huge Ganesas in various forms

have grown in Madras and finally taken to the Marina beach.

This is from Bombay, and magazines tell this was

started by B. G. Tilak.

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan