Ganesha Chaturthi Prayer

The beauty of this land we call Malaysia, is that we celebrate just about everything. From Raya Haji, to our King’s birthday, Independence Day and of course, we needed another holiday to mark our achievements in the recent SEA Games – all in the last couple of weeks.

At the same time, the Hindus also celebrated the Ganesha Chaturthi, a ten-day festival that honours the elephant head God. And he is revered as the remover of obstacles and he is usually invoked before the undertaking of any task.

So I thought to myself, what is my prayer?

My recent trip to Sabah with The Rojak Project team got me to question our idea of nationhood. The schools in Sabah primarily celebrate only the 16th September as Malaysia Day. I vividly remember only celebrating 31st August as Independence Day in the peninsular, when I was growing up. It just seemed really strange that we are segregated even in understanding the history of our nation.

So I prayed to Ganesha, that he removes this obstacle of uniting today’s society. This Malaysia Day, putting aside the differences, our collaborative team prayed for unity – in a puja to Ganesha and asked his blessings to take on this road to nation-building. Let us look forward with confidence. Collaborators: Photographer: Nazir Sufari Talent: Praveen Arakiah

Editor: Gabriela Jerjes