ISSUE
Friday, August 22, 2025
Volume 16 . Issue 73
Last week, Christchurch got an opportunity to celebrate the annual Ganesh Chaturthi festival publicly at two different functions.
First up was the celebration on Friday at the New Brighton Community Centre, which was a personal initiative of Sandeep Khanna and Hitesh Sharma, and was attended by over 200 people.
The day started with murti sthapana around noon, and ended with evening prayers. “The make-shift Ganesh temple decoration was done by Pramila Nand and prasad was distributed courtesy Yogiji stores.
The festival is huge back home [Sandeep hails from Mumbai] and we used to miss it when we moved here. That prompted us to start organising the festival at this scale since 2015,” noted the two organisers.
Then on Sunday evening, the Telugu Association of South Island (TasiNZ) also celebrated Vinayaka Chaturthi, clubbing it together with the Association's Indian Independence Day celebrations.
Along with the prayers sung in praise of Lord Ganesh, the event saw a Bharatanatyam dance performance by Ms Sneha Kasibhatla. TasiNZ's volunteers also performed a skit at the occasion depicting the devotion of Lord Ganesh to his parents, Shiv-Parvati.
The evening concluded with everyone singing the Indian national anthem, with the gathering treated to some tasty Andhra Pradesh delicacies.
Last week, Christchurch got an opportunity to celebrate the annual Ganesh Chaturthi festival publicly at two different functions.
First up was the celebration on Friday at the New Brighton Community Centre, which was a personal initiative of Sandeep Khanna and Hitesh Sharma, and was attended by...
Last week, Christchurch got an opportunity to celebrate the annual Ganesh Chaturthi festival publicly at two different functions.
First up was the celebration on Friday at the New Brighton Community Centre, which was a personal initiative of Sandeep Khanna and Hitesh Sharma, and was attended by over 200 people.
The day started with murti sthapana around noon, and ended with evening prayers. “The make-shift Ganesh temple decoration was done by Pramila Nand and prasad was distributed courtesy Yogiji stores.
The festival is huge back home [Sandeep hails from Mumbai] and we used to miss it when we moved here. That prompted us to start organising the festival at this scale since 2015,” noted the two organisers.
Then on Sunday evening, the Telugu Association of South Island (TasiNZ) also celebrated Vinayaka Chaturthi, clubbing it together with the Association's Indian Independence Day celebrations.
Along with the prayers sung in praise of Lord Ganesh, the event saw a Bharatanatyam dance performance by Ms Sneha Kasibhatla. TasiNZ's volunteers also performed a skit at the occasion depicting the devotion of Lord Ganesh to his parents, Shiv-Parvati.
The evening concluded with everyone singing the Indian national anthem, with the gathering treated to some tasty Andhra Pradesh delicacies.
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