At a time when numerous mandals mushroom at every nook and corner in the city vying for the spotlight during the 10-day Ganesh festival, the people behind the mandals could take a leaf out of the unique celebrations in two villages on the outskirts of Mumbai.

Sandap and Ghariwali, two neigbour villages that are 10- minute away from Dombivli host public Ganesh festivals in a true spirit as intended by its proponent Lokmanya Balgangadhar Tilak. Both the villages have been following the ‘one-village-one-Ganpati model’ for several decades. The villagers strictly follow the unwritten dictum as the entire village has only one Ganesh festival celebration and there are no private celebrations in the households.

Sandap has over 100 houses and a population of 550 people. The village’s Ganesh festival is celebrated inside the Datta temple. “This seems to be a very old custom. I’ve been seeing this since I came to this village in 1969. Besides bringing out unity among the villagers, this occasion gives an opportunity to socialise too,” said 55-year-old Rajni Patil.

Village elder Narayan Patil (62) remembers that the custom of ‘one-village-one-Ganpati’ has been followed in the village since post-independence era. “In 1966, it was decided in weekly meetings of the village that henceforth there would be only public Ganesh festival celebrations. Since then everybody has been religiously following this tradition,” said Patil. The temple forum has also been successfully propagating Swadhaya, a movement founded by late Pandurang Shastri Athavale, and it was primarily aimed at tackling alcoholism among the villagers.

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