Lassi with Lavina, A New Start with Ganesha
What better way to start a new blog than with Ganesha, the Lord of New Beginnings? Give him whichever name you choose – He is that consciousness that is within us and around us and in the very breath we take.
I’ve never been able to discard a Ganesha image, be it on a wedding card or a flyer. There He is, dancing, playing a lute, eating a sweet. All these playful Ganesha images lie wedged in between my books and my papers, hopefully merging into the pages, increasing my knowledge, making me a better writer and removing obstacles!
Ganesha appears just about everywhere in India from ancient temples to contemporary art work to posters plastered in the bazaars, and is the most beloved of the Hindu gods. With his elephant head, his potbelly, his weakness for sweets and his preferred vehicle of a mouse, he is quite irresistible. He is a god who has crisscrossed faiths in India to become the icon of good luck and prosperity. Any new task – be it the signing of a business deal, the making of a movie or the buying of a house – will begin only after Ganesha is invoked.
The writer Gita Mehta says in her book “Eternal Ganesha’ (Vendome Press): “He is regarded as the Origin of the Universe, the Lord of Connection, of Cause and Effect, the Moment of Creation. He’s really a metaphor for a philosophical quest, an eternal search.”
As she points out, Ganesha is also the special god of India’s vast student population: “Many students believe if they slice a closed text book with a Ganesha medallion the book will fall open at the very topic on which they will be examined, and before entering an examination hall cautious students might recite the Ganesha prayer.”
So since starting a new blog is somewhat of a test and I myself am a newbie blogger, I invoke Ganesha, He who already has a mouse and is suited perfectly to Cyberspace! He is also the Lord of Wisdom – a passionate scribe who broke off his own tusk to use as a pen when transcribing the epic tale of Mahabharata for the sage Vyasa. What greater inspiration for a writer?
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