PANJIM: Many families bid farewell to Lord Ganesha on one and half day of the annual Ganesh Chaturthi festival.
This year , familes celebrated Ganesh Chaturthi on a smaller scale with social distancing as the state government had issued SOPs for Immersion of idols in a bid to curb the spread of COVID19.
During immersion it was a sight very different, no fire works, lesser crowd but one thing that every family chanted was to overcome Covid from the planet.
“This year was very dull, I mean it doesn’t feel like Chaturthi at all. We just celebrated amongst our family, no friends nothing. We took all precautions. We prayed to Ganesh to overcome this deadly virus from the planet.” said Anirudha Bhaje, a resident of Caranzalem who had come for immersion at Ferry point in Panjim
Another resident, Gokul Kattimani said that “All the rituals were performed by my father as we did not call the priest as he visits many houses. This year is very dull and we have prayed for good health and to protect our people,”
Lotteries with expensive prizes, which were another highlight of the community Ganesh celebrations were dropped.
Temple priest Vasudev said that this year all the rituals had been done by the head of the family instead of priests due to scare of Covid.
Fireworks merchants too were seen disturbing due to lack of sale.
“We had kept a watch since the last 2 months and planned accordingly. We did not get much stock of firecrackers as we knew of the circumstances and that people would celebrated in a high fashion manner.” said a dealer
Many other business like sound systems, lighting and truck services who used to carry the idols for immersion were not seen this year due to the curb and SOPs released by the state government.
