restarting with Ganesha

After a gap from this blog, thought it was a good way to restart with this year's ganesha.
both the government agencies and many social organizations have been creating a lot of awareness of the pollution caused by painted ganeshas and indiscriminate immersions of the idols along with the flowers and other stuff.

this year also saw just plain mud ganeshas in the market.

we [my son and I] decided to make our own mud ganesha this time.
with some clay from our own garden, we set out to make a ganesha based on our own imagination.
the clay needed cleaning - to remove the pieces of stones and concrete etc.
and then had to be kneaded to make a smooth paste.

then some complications, as the clay was probably a little too watery.

with some more work, could get that to be more consistent to be shaped.
was looking for the 'kundumani' beads for the eyes, before deciding to use black pepper.

finally, it was all well and ready for the puja the next day - with time overnight for the idol to dry a bit.

Happy Ganesha!