MANTRA ON NET : Festivals Of India: Anant Chaturdashi
The celebrations of Ganesh Chaturthi comes to an end on Anant Chaturdashi when all the idols used for the community and private celebrations go for visarjan in the sea in Maharashtra or the nearest river or tank in the other towns of India.
There is a procession of all the locality devotees as they take the idols with great fanfare, to the waterfront. There is usually a lot of bandobust by the authorities to keep the traffic running smoothly. In Maharashtra people take the idols, shouting Ganpati Bappa Maurya, Pudchya Varsha Lavkarya. There are fireworks all the way and the procession stops now and then for people to have their last darshan of the year.
In all the towns, there is always a great crowd and shouts of Ganpati Bappa Maurya rent the air as the idols are taken into the depth of the water, facing the direction of the locality or home from which they have come. Slowly, they are submerged into the sea, river or tank, and as dusk settles in, people return to their homes and wait for the next year’s festival of the first god of the Hindu pantheon. The artists start deliberating on their efforts for next year, for Lord Ganesh provides a lot of people with a livelihood.
Visarjan for household idols can be done after one and a half, seven or ten days.