Ganpati's gold

The jeweller's shop on Dadar's busy Ranade road is yet to open. Standing outside and bickering are three generations of the Prabhu family, the youngest, Priya, most unhappy about this trip from Kurla to pick up jewellery for the family deity, Ganesh. "You wanted to come soon to avoid traffic na? For what? To wait like this?" asks the teenager.

Her parents Vishwanath and Radha look crestfallen at the insolence, but grandmother Shaila, who's raised five kids, knows better. "Don't talk like that about God. That too Ganpati!" admonishes the septuagenarian. The family's bought flowers at the phool market across the lane, vegetables at the Dadar market and have already had a lassi and sugarcane juice each to kill time.

The crowd builds up as the minutes pass. When the shop finally opens, the staff hit the ground running as they rush to serve the customers. The Prabhus finally get the jewellery for their Ganesh, which they had brought in for polishing, and each item is examined with care. Priya gets shouted at by her mother for holding Ganpati's coral necklace against herself as she pouts in the mirror.

They had also commissioned a pure gold bunch of 21 durva grass blades as an offering this year. "We add something every year to Ganesha's gold collection," says the family matriarch Shaila, disclosing that this this is a family tradition that started even before her mother-in-law's time.

"Along with devotion, it ends up becoming an investment and cuts down splurging on the unnecessary. At the beginning of the month, before starting expenses on ourselves, we put away money which is allowed to accumulate for investing in gold for Ganesh."

With bracelets, crown, necklaces, earcuffs, anklets, tusks, rings and toe-rings, the small Ganesh idol is adorned with nearly 100 tolas of gold ornaments gathered over nearly 65 years. Most of the jewellery is studded with emeralds, rubies, pearls and diamonds.

The jewellery comes out of the bank locker a week before the festival for polishing and is promptly put back soon after the fifth day immersion. "In these days of thefts and break-ins, one can never be too careful," says Radha who insists that one of the menfolk in the family sit near the idol 24x7. "On the face of it, this is meant to ensure that the diya never runs out of oil for the entire five days but it actually ensures the idol is never left alone."

The only item that stays in the house is the seven-pearled bhik baali (men's earring). "It stays at the altar where we worship it daily. When the idol is ready even before it dries we take the baali and a priest along for the ear-piercing ceremony."

Nearly 13 km away, entrepreneur Renu Kant who runs a chain of high-end salons across Mumbai and its far suburbs, is also in the throes of last minute preparations for the elephant god's annual 10-day visit to her home.

"We began with a very small idol 12 years ago. Over the years, the scale of preparations and the idol have only grown," she smiles.

"In 2007, I was told by one of my staff to offer gold to Ganesh. I began with a crown and have since been adding one adornment after another every year."

She discovered how the Ganesh Purana describes his love for gold. "He returns four-fold whatever we offer Him." We ask if this has come true for her in the last eight years and she beams folding her hands in supplication. "I have nothing to complain about.

Unlike the Prabhus who think of the family deity's gold as a contingency in crisis ("Thankfully, Ganesh has ensured its never come to that," says Radha), Renu finds even the suggestion reprehensible. "If the Lord has been so bountiful, this is his share. It should be allowed to accumulate without touching it. Once it reaches a sizeable amount, we could use it to help a suitable noble cause."

Leading actor Nana Patekar recently made headlines for distributing cheques to as many as 113 distressed families of farmers from Latur and Osmanabad who have committed suicides due to drought and indebtedness. His nonagenarian mother Sanjanabai told this writer of the bad times the family had fallen on in the late '70s. "Most of my jewellery was gone and we were then pawning out Ganesh's ornaments… but we were particular getting all of Ganesh's jewellery back before the festival."

It's not only the residential Ganeshs who are offered gold. Some like the 17 feet-plus Ganpati at the Gaud Saraswat Brahmin Mandal at King's Circle (Mumbai's richest) has a jaw-dropping 68 kgs of gold and 435 kgs of silver. Given the huge security risk involved, the idol and the gold and silver adorning it are all insured. Last year, this worked out to nearly Rs 1,900 crores!

All that glitters may not be gold. Look closely... it might be Ganesh.