Ganapati Bappa is arriving tomorrow in many households whereas in some homes Ganeshji has already arrived. Across the country, the festival is celebrated with a lot of happiness and excitement. But in the true sense, it is Mumbai that celebrates Ganesh Festival in a huge way.
Be it the locals bringing home Ganapati Bappa at home and doing their immersion or the various big pandals like Lal Bagcha Raja installing big idols of Ganeshji where the devotees throng in thousands to take darshan, in Mumbai the atmosphere around is electrifying and charged.
And since Mumbai is the capital of Bollywood where most of the actors from superstars to character actors live, Ganesh Festival also is celebrated by Bollywood actors irrespective of the religion they belong to.
Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan celebrate Ganesh Festival
SRK brings home the Ganesh idol every year and performs the puja despite the fact that he is a Muslim. Ditto with Salman Khan who has been doing the puja and aarti during the Ganesh Festival for many decades now since the puja is done by everyone in the family every year. Kareena Kapoor Khan also brings home Ganapati Bappa and despite the fact that Saif Ali Khan is a Muslim, she makes sure that her children are aware of her Hindu traditions.
Bollywood stars like Katrina Kaif , Soha Ali Khan, Shilpa Shetty Kundra, Sanjay Dutt, Hrithik Roshan, Ajay Devgn and even television personalities like Arjun Bijlani, Hina Khan, Shweta Tiwari celebrate Ganesh Festival with a proper puja and aarti ritual every year.
Mass Utsav that have been a part of many Bollywood movies
Ganesh Festival is a mass utsav in Mumbai that brings people from all religions together. For decades, Ganeshji has been the favourite God of both Muslims and Hindus and even common Muslim brothers and sisters go to Ganesh pandals to offer their prayers and take prasad with great reverence. From the song “Deva Shri Ganesha” in Agneepath to Remo D’Souza’s ABCD, many Bollywood movies have used Ganesh Festival as the background to create a central twist or an important scene in the movie.
It is a festival that sets an example of unity in diversity among Indians and has now become an integral part of everyone’s life in Bollywood and Mumbai.