Pune police ban Box Arches (Kaman) for Ganeshotsav 

Pune – To avoid any untoward incident during the upcoming Ganeshotsav from September 13, Pune police traffic branch has issued notice stating that box arches (Kaman) will not be allowed at mandals on the road or any other public place.

Police had stopped some mandals from erecting box arches as they pose threat to people’s safety. There are a total of about 5,000 mandals in Pune.

Ganesh Chaturthi is the Hindu festival that reveres the god Ganesha. A ten-day festival, it starts on the fourth day of Hindu calendar month Bhadrapada, which typically falls in the months of August or September of the Gregorian calendar. The festival is marked with the installation of Ganesha clay idols privately in homes, or publicly on elaborate pandals (temporary stages). Observations include chanting of Vedic hymns and Hindu texts such as Ganapati Upanishad, prayers and vrata (fasting). Offerings and prasadam from the daily prayers, that is distributed from the pandal to the community, include sweets such as modaka believed to be a favorite of the elephant-headed deity. The festival ends on the tenth day after start, wherein the idol is carried in a public procession with music and group chanting, then immersed in a nearby body of water such as a river or ocean. Thereafter the clay idol dissolves and Ganesha is believed to return to Mount Kailash to Parvati and Shiva.

The festival celebrates Lord Ganesha as the God of New Beginnings and the Remover of Obstacles as well as the god of wisdom and intelligence and is observed throughout India, especially in the states such as Maharashtra, Goa, Telangana, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh, and is usually celebrated privately at home in states such as Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Ganesh Chaturthi is also observed in Nepal and by the Hindu diaspora elsewhere such as in the Trinidad, Suriname, Fiji, Mauritius, United States and in Europe (in Tenerife).