HYDERABAD: “Oh dadi (grandmother)! Isn’t our Ganesha looking good?” a little boy asked. The grandmother, who was passing by, nodded in agreement. The little boy’s Plaster of Paris (PoP) Ganesha, decked in all finery, is the biggest idol in the pandal. He is joined by 50 other miniature Ganesha idols and models of rats, who are believed to be the vehicles of the elephant-headed Hindu deity. The nine lanes of Hindi Nagar alone, in Goshamahal, house 50 Ganesha pandals. Another pandal houses a Ganesha holding onto a soaring Chandrayaan-3 launcher.
In Nagulchinta lane of Lal Darwaza, children returning from school look bewildered. They were welcomed by models of polling officers. This year, the idea behind Future Foundation’s Ganesha is to familiarise youngsters with the process of elections. In front of the 16-foot-tall Ganesha, there are cardboard cutouts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao. Cutouts of police officers were also found there.
A little girl greeted the clay Ganesha with folded hands. “Our idol is fully eco-friendly. We have only used watercolours,” says Sachin Chandan, president of Future Foundation. His organisation has been setting up pandals with innovative themes since 2011. For example, in 2021, the idol spread awareness about Covid-19 vaccines.
However, every year, the Khairatabad clay Ganesh is the cynosure of all eyes. Standing tall at 63 feet, devotees from all over the city, dressed in festive wear, throng the area to see the idol. As vehicles have been prohibited, visitors move slowly towards the idol on foot. Due to the footfall, the area is bustling with all kinds of economic activity. jewellery vendors, fortune tellers, makeshift sweet shops, and toy sellers have occupied both sides of the road.
While some organisers have made the shift to eco-friendly materials, PoP idols are still a common sight in the city. “When we made the switch to clay, everyone made fun of us,” says Chandan. In the coming days, these PoP idols will make their way to the Hussainsagar, despite a 2022 Telangana High Court order prohibiting the immersion of PoP idols in the heavily polluted lake.