Inside Chahatt Khanna's Home For Ganesh Chaturthi Celebrations: 'Rohan Selected Our Ganpati This Year'| FPJ Exclusive

Ganesh Chaturthi is a festival that brings with it the warmth of family, the joy of traditions and the bittersweet emotions of saying goodbye to Bappa. For Chahatt Khanna, the celebrations at home are a beautiful three-day tradition that she has been following for the past five years with Rohan Gandotra. In an exclusive conversation with The Free Press Journal, Chahatt opens up about the rituals and memories that make Bappa’s presence at home so special.

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For Chahatt, finding the perfect Ganpati idol has become a special part of the celebrations, and she credits Rohan for making the choice this year. “I would say Rohan is the one who selected him. He was adamant that 'no, I really like this Ganpati'. I was like, 'let’s look at another one and see.' But he kept saying he liked this one. And there was also this thing that once we saw this Ganpati, we couldn’t understand any other Ganpati anymore. And now we found out that it is Dagdusheth Ganpati. I think every year we will now bring this same Ganpati. Now I’ve found my perfect Ganpati. So every year you’re going to see this Ganpati in my home.”

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While visarjan is an emotional goodbye for Chahatt, she believes that letting go of Bappa also teaches us an important spiritual lesson. “Visarjan does feel bad. It feels really bad. Then when the pandal is empty, you feel like, yaar, the pandal is empty. And then the next day, when you see their jewellery floating, you feel like, should I collect it? What should I do with this jewellery? What should I do with so many flowers? But then somewhere, you feel like, how much can you do, how much can you preserve? After all, you have to let it go. And this sacrifice reminds us that whatever you have, whatever the most precious thing you have, you must learn to let it go. That’s where you grow spiritually. So, after all, that’s the whole thought behind it. Then you feel like, no, it’s okay, we’ll do it again next year.”

Chahatt also highlights why choosing an eco-friendly Ganpati is an important step towards protecting the environment. “Ganpati is no longer just a festival of Maharashtra. People have started celebrating it all over India, okay? And we Maharashtrians used to celebrate it in small spaces, in one room of our homes and all. But now people celebrate it all over India, so imagine what will happen when so many Ganpatis go into the sea. What will happen to marine life? So what we do is - we get an eco-friendly Ganpati and we create a pond and do the visarjan there itself. We don’t go and do it in the sea because it’s not good for the environment. No matter how spiritually or ritually we celebrate it, we also have to think about the environment. So it's very important to have an eco-Ganesha at home.”

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