Ganapati Puja

All three ceremonies for the sacred thread took place in the Pandey's living room, which had been cleared of furniture and meticulously cleaned.  Pandey and Himanshu took full baths before beginning, so they would be ritually pure.  Other people had less stringent requirements--to remove their shoes, and for women to cover their heads.  The people sitting behind are all relatives.

As you can see, the cupboards behind the people have been opened.  This is because the Pandey's household deities are stored there, and during all these religious events the doors were opened, so that the gods enshrined within could also be part of this.  The Ganapati Puja began with a series of flower offerings, in which Pandey would hold a flower in his hand (visible here), and the pundit (brahmin priest, whose yellow dhoti is visible at far left) would chant a series of Sanskrit verses.  At the end of each section Pandey would place the flower in a little throne, which was symbolically the place where Ganesh was seated.

This picture shows the pundit handing Pandey one of the flower blossoms as an offering, as well as all the other items used in the ritual.  In its model, a puja is a series of offerings from the worshipper to the diety; the most traditional number is sixteen offerings.   Spread out here can be seen a number of these: flowers, fruits, incense, water, a lamp, a bell, yoghurt, and cooked food offerings. 

The brass lattice holder just left of center was the place where Pandey placed the flowers as he offered them, and during the ceremony was treated as the place where Ganesh was located.   The only other identifiable images of deities were of Shiva, both the right and the left of the latticework platform (on the left seated on the other side of the hooded snake, and on the right set up on the three-legged brass platform.

One of the essential parts of the ritual is the fees (dakshina) for the brahmin priest, and these are also put before image, as part of the parapernalia of sacrifice.  Here Pandey is peeling off some cash from a big wad (something he did all through this series--he estimated that he would spend over Rs. 30,000 on the ceremony (a large amount).  There are strong social pressures to perform this; Pandey said to me that when this was done, his only remaining major responsibility would be to arrange the marriage of his daughter.  Himanshu spent most of the time at these rituals beside his father, although for most of them he had a clearly subsidiary role (only appropriate, since he was not yet a fully fledged brahmin man).  The handkerchief over his head seems to be one sign that he is not the major religious actor here--there was a point in the Navagraha Puja when these roles were reversed--Himanshu was bareheaded, and his father put a scarf on his head.

Here Pandey is performing one of the sixteen traditional offerings, namely  is a reverential salutation (namaskaram). 

Here's a closer look at some of the offerings.  The brass pot by Pandey's hand holds water, and the top of the little spoon used to spoon it for offering is visible there.  The small bottle in the upper right center holds rosewater, another fragrant offering.