Shri Ganesha Festival & Mega Blood Donation Drive Bangkok

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The Hindu god reigns supreme this weekend in a festival that also features a Guinness record attempt

Bangkok’s Indian community and its Thai and expatriate friends will attempt to set a Guinness world record this weekend for the most blood donations collected in eight hours.

The record attempt will be part of the city’s first Shri Ganesha Festival, taking place at CentralWorld tomorrow through Sunday.

As well as offering tribute to the Hindu deity Ganesha, the festival is dedicated to Their Majesties the King and Queen and to “peace and prosperity in Thailand”. It also celebrates the golden jubilee of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad Association of Thailand, which has organised the event.

Indian Minister of State for Tourism and Culture Shri Shripad Yesso Naik and Ambassador Harsh Vardhan Shringla will inaugurate the proceedings tomorrow at 5pm.

More than 10,000 people are expected to join in the festivities, which culminate with the immersion of a giant statue of Ganesha in the Chao Phraya River.

“The Thai-Indian cultural connection goes back centuries,” says VHP Association president Susheel Kumar Saraff. “The first Ganesha Festival in Bangkok will be a milestone in strengthening socio-economic and cultural relations between both countries.”

A Thai and Indian cultural programme is arranged for each evening, from 6 to 8pm, including dancing and singing.

The “Mega Blood Donation Camp” on Saturday aims to collect more than 500 units in eight hours at two different locations. It’s part of a global campaign involving 700 camps in 300 cities, together hoping to amass 100,000 units for each station’s local Red Cross branch.

“Shri Ganesha in Your Mind” is a painting competition open to all. There are categories for people age 18 and under and for those older, with prizes for the best efforts. Entrants need to bring along their own materials.

A Ganesha statue more than three metres long, made in Thailand by artists from India, will be on view throughout the festival, as will 32 sculptures of the deity in all his forms, brought specially from the Utthya Ganesha temple in Nakhon Nayok.

Ganesha amulets will be on sale. The amulets are fashioned from clay, so that their immersion in water during the Visarjan ceremony at the end of the festival will have no harmful environmental effect.

In the culmination of the festival on Sunday afternoon, the primary Ganesh idol will be carried in procession to Rama III Road and immersed in the Chao Phraya River under the Bhumibhol 2 Bridge.

Stalls selling “100-per-cent vegetarian food” will abound and all varieties of Indian food will be available, much of it from major restaurant chains like Saras and Haldiram.

Other stalls will sell souvenirs and products, including jewellery, henna and ayurvedic items and others related to astrology. You can even arrange a Buddhist pilgrimage to India with Magic Holidays.

 

The festival programme:

TOMORROW (5th September, 2014)

10am to noon – Sthapna Pujan & Aarti @

3pm – Short movie on Ganesha

5pm – Inauguration ceremony followed by cultural performances

8pm – Sandhya Arti

SATURDAY (6th September, 2014)

10am – Shri Ganesh Pujan and Aarti

11am – Make merit by offering food to 21 Buddhists monks

11am to 5pm – Guinness Record attempt at largest-ever blood donation in eight hours

Noon to 3pm – “Shri Ganesha in Your Mind” painting competition

3pm – Short movie on Shri Ganesha

6 to 8pm – Cultural performances

8pm – Sandhya Aarti

SUNDAY (57th September, 2014)

10am – Shri Ganesh Pujan and Aarti

Noon to 1pm – Cultural performances

2pm – Visarjan Pujan and Aarti

3pm – Procession and Visarjan Ceremony