On Ganesh Chaturthi, Chennai Students Create 18,000 sqft Ganpati with Blazing Amazon Forest as Theme

Ganesh Chaturthi is being celebrated across the country today, September 2, with fervour and enthusiasm. The festival also marks the start of 10-day long Ganeshotsav in Mumbai and Maharashtra, where devotees worship Lord Ganesha, whom they lovingly called Bappa, and bring home idols, offer modak and other offerings. The festival is celebrated by people of all ages, amidst this a few school students from Chennai took the opportunity to spread the message of saving Amazon forest, to the world.

“We have come together to prepare this huge portrait of Lord Ganesha to sincerely pray to him to save the Amazon forest. Also, we want to spread out the word that the forest is the lungs of the earth; therefore, we cannot leave it burning. Join hands to pray and act to save the lungs, the Amazon forest,” news agency ANI quoted one of the students of the Everwin Vidhyashram School, Chennai, Vridhi, as saying.

Around 2,000 students from Everwin Vidhyashram School came together to form an image of Lord Ganesha, on an area of approximately 18,000 square feet and decorated it with 5,500 light lamps.

A heart-touching message was written by the students along with the gigantic image that read, "Oh, Lord, Our Lungs Are Burning. Save Amazon, Save Earth". The pupils also urged the world leaders to come together in putting off the Amazon fire to save mother Earth.

Another student named Sanusha. S. Menon said, “We could have celebrated the festival in the traditional way like every year, but since this is the hour of crisis we planned to do something unique and big. The portrait of Ganpati is made and decorated by 2000 thousand students from standard 7th till 12th by using approximately 5500 lamps.”

Highlighting the purpose behind the noble yet subtle cause, one of the teachers of the school, Esther said, “Our children have been praying to the Lord Ganesha to save the Amazon forest and this initiative is to request everyone to come together, join hands in solving this global issue currently.”

Here's how Twitter reacted to the efforts of the students: