Ganesha Festival

Ganesha is one of the better known Hindu Gods outside of India. He is the elephant headed god with 4 arms on a human like body. This may not be quite an accurate story, but our understanding is that while Shiva (one of the 3 primary gods- Brahma and Vishnu being the other two) was away his wife Parvati gave birth to a son. When Shiva returned he found this stranger around his home and cut off his head thinking he was an intruder. Once he learned of his error he put the head of an elephant on the body of his son and, thus, Ganesha was born, or created.
Ganesha is considered to bring good luck and is the "remover of obstacles", so he is very popular. We like him too.
Around this time of year there are a number of festivals centered around Ganesha. We do not understand what they are all for, but at the end of those festivals a statue of Ganesha is usually submerged in water. So there are thousands of Ganesha Statues made in the time leading up to this and they are used in the festivals and then taken to lakes or rivers where they are submerged. Some of these statues are BIG. Today we drove past and area where the statues are being made and painted all sorts of pretty colors- there were hundreds! They ranged in size from about 2 feet tall to about 12 feet tall! (check back- we'll try to add a picture or two)
Unfortunately, every year a number of people drown in the process of taking Ganesha statues into the water. We think we mentioned this last year about this time too. So, it is a festive time, but it also has a number of tragedies associated with it too.