Pune Ganesh Festival

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Pune city and Ganesh festival are connected to each other by an unbreakable bond. The festival in Pune is blessed with the guidance of Lokmanya Tilak. A unique mix of religion, heritage and social bonding is seen during the festival times. Currently the trend and focus is on historic and mythological stories played out live by actors or through various decorations, vivid lighting decorations, and groups of artists playing the traditional dhol and tasha (rhythm instruments). Decorations based on technology as well as those creating social awareness are quite popular in today's era. The book gives information about the top five 'Manache' respected Ganesh Mandals, various popular Mandals around the city and their unique Ganesh idols. The book also talks about Pune's famous sculptors who created these idols and various Mandals that are housed in talims or wrestling gyms.

While working in the IT field, Swapnil Nahar has been promoting the Ganesh festival of Pune to the world by means of the website www.puneganeshfestival.com for the last 13 years. He has also studied various books related to this topic, visited the Mandals and personally experienced the Ganesh festival to collect all the information that is presented in a very creative and unique way in this book titled 'Punyache Sukhakarta'. He runs the 'Save Heritage' movement in pune.

Suprasad has an Engineering degree in Printing Technology. He is a student of the history of Pune. He has also written and published a book that gives information about how various places in Pune have been named the way they are, in his book titled 'Navamage Dadlay Kay' which translates to 'What's hidden in a name'. He learnt Modi Script. He also conducts heritage walks to share information about various heritage sites in Pune city.

Pune city (also called Punyanagari) is known as the cultural capital of Maharashtra. It has also earned recognition as a major education hub. Pune also has significant and ancient history associated with it. A few years ago, with the help of the Deccan College, Pune, I discovered the remains of a 2000 year old civilization in the city. These ruins can be associated with the Satavahana or the Shalivahana civilization. With a 2000 year old cultural heritage, the journey of Pune is quite fascinating.

After the Satavahana era, the Rashtrakutas ruled in the 8th century, Sheelahars ruled in the 10th century and later on the Yadava rule was prevalent. During those days, Pune was a cultural and religious center. It has seen many ups and downs in history. In the 13th century, in 1298, Allauddin Khilji attacked and defeated Ramdeorao Yadav of Devgiri. Entire Maharashtra and South India came under the Islamic rule for the first time. The attackers destroyed many monuments of cultural heritage. The impact of this destruction was felt by Pune as well. Two grand temples called Punyeshwar and Narayaneshwar mentioned in the Abhangs of Saint Namdeo were also destroyed and a Dargah was built on that site. A few years ago, the remains of the temples were discovered here during an excavation.