Ashtavinayak Yatra: Part Five

Day Three: 15.08.2022

A very "Happy Independence Day" to all the Indians. I got ready and went down for the breakfast. The breakfast was not yet ready, and we had to wait for some time. I watched the gym and swimming pool in the meanwhile. Breakfast consisted of poha, bread butter jam, tea-coffee and sabudana khichdi and banana (for the ones who have fast). Done with this and checking out the rooms, we had a group photo with our tricolor flag. We also sang the National Anthem. 

Luggage was loaded into the bus, and we started the journey to the next ganpati in the Ashtavinayak series. Since we had the "Har Ghar Tiranga" theme, every shop we drove by, waved the flag at the top.

Shri Ballaleshwar Ganpati, Pali

Located in Pali village of Raigad district, the temple is nearly 30kms away from Karjat. Situated between Sarasgad fort and river Amba, the temple is shaped like the letter Shri in devanagiri script. Both eye and naval of the idol are studded with diamonds. The temple has a 15-feet high sanctum and the gigantic metal bell is the highlight of the temple. There are two lakes near the temple, water of one of these lakes is used to ganesha's worship and other for auspicious occasions. According to the legends, the stone that Ballal's father had thrown away is known as Dhundi Vinayak.

The bus was parked at quite a distance. We had to walk a lot to reach the main temple lane. We passed through many shops selling modak and pedha, flowers and garlands, etc. First we worshipped the idol in stone form, Dhundi Vinayak and then queued up for the ganpati darshan. Here again it was quite a long queue, but as usual all the tiredness vanished once we worshipped the idol. 

Post that we sat in the temple for some time. And then did the modak shopping and returned to the bus by 12pm. Travellers played Anthakshari and Housie while I had a sound sleep.

Shri Varadvinayak Ganpati, Mahad

The temple is located in Mahad village that falls under the Khalapur Taluka near Karjat and Khopoli of Raigad district. The temple has a 25-feet arch with a kalash, whic is covered with a beautifully carved cobra. Surrounded with statues of elephants on all the sides, the eight feet long and eight feet wide temple has a Gomukh on its northern side from where flows the tirth.

The location was crowded, it took time to park the bus. Then we joined the queue at 2:30pm, which was long upto the lane of shops and stalls. Then we reached the temple, again queueing through a series of lines and almost getting tired, we had the darshan at 4pm. But we got the chance to touch the idol. We sat for a while in the temple and then worshipped the Datt Mandir and then were back to the main road. We passed by a statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

We had lunch at 4:30pm. Post lunch we had a cake cutting session for the successful completion of the tour. 

Then we started our journey back to Mumbai. On the journey, we also gave a token of Thanks to Yogesh, Harshal and the kitchen staff. People started alighting on the way and finally we reached Borivali Omkareshwar temple. Deepali and me took an auto to the station. While she waited for her train to Baroda, I boarded the 9PM Virar train, which was of course crowded. Finally the Ashtavinayak Yatra was completed.