As the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi brings great zeal and devotion through worshipping colourful and gigantic idols, the devotees have been using various materials to prepare eco-friendly Ganesha idols. This year, a Kandivali-based organisation prepared an eco-friendly Ganpati idol using threads of different colours to symbolise different religions, thereby giving a message for communal harmony.
As the awareness for eco-friendly Ganpati idols spreads wide across the masses, people have been scrapping plaster of paris (POP) and preparing idols out of clay, scrap papers, tissues and a variety of other materials. Mudrika Foundation, a non-government organisation working to help underprivileged students to pursue their desired educational field, prepared a Ganpati idol out of threads.
Celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi 2024 in an eco-friendly manner and win big!Mumbai: 26-Foot-Tall Paper Ganesh Idol At Chandivali Office Building Becomes ‘World’s Tallest Eco-Friendly Ganpati Idol’
This year, Ganpati’s idol were crafted entirely from eco-friendly materials, using threads of different colors to symbolize various religions and communities. The idol included saffron thread to symbolise Hinduism, green for Islam, blue for Buddhism, red for Sikhism, white for Christianity, yellow for Zoarastrians and purple for diversity. The idea behind using threads to prepare a Ganpati idol was to emphasise unity and harmony among various communities.
Prathamesh Jha, founder of Mudrika Foundation, said, “From the last three years, we have been trying to prepare Ganpati idols in such a way that it provides a message to the larger society. This year we saw wars between multiple countries and collapse of countries like Bangladesh. Threads are a symbol to tie things with each other and therefore using them as our main prop, we made this idol with threads of different colours to highlight the necessity of communal harmony.
Earlier, the organisation prepared an idol out of coins to highlight the requirement of a strong economy and last year, pencil waste was used to create the idol of “the god of knowledge” to spread awareness about importance of education.
The idol was prepared by the underprivileged children under the guidance of Jha. The organisation helps the students by paying their school and college fees along with providing free coaching to them. Jha, who himself was born and brought up in the slums of Mumbai completed his post-graduation through financial aid and now helps other students achieve their educational aspirations.
The children of the community, under the guidance of Prathamesh Jha and his team, played a pivotal role in the creation of this unique idol, which was completed over two weeks. Through this initiative, Mudrika Foundation aims to foster unity among all religions and communities.
