Shri Siddhivinayak Temple, Prabhadevi

01Deubai’s vow

On 19 November 1801 a small brick shrine went up in the fields of Prabhadevi, then a village well outside the Bombay fort. The money came from Deubai Patil, a well-to-do woman of the Agri community who had no children of her own; the builder was Laxman Vithu Patil. Her wish was simple: that the Ganapati she installed should give children to women who prayed to him. Two and a half feet of black stone, the murti has four hands holding a lotus, an axe, a rosary and a bowl of modaks, with Riddhi and Siddhi on either side. The trunk turns to the right, the form called Siddhivinayak, held to be quick to grant and strict in worship.

02From field shrine to city temple

As Bombay grew round it, the shrine grew too. A state law of 1980 placed it under the Shree Siddhivinayak Ganapati Temple Trust, and the old structure gave way to the present multi-storeyed temple with a gilded inner dome, completed in the 1990s. The sanctum doors are carved with the Ashtavinayak forms. Tuesday is Ganapati’s day here, and when a Chaturthi falls on a Tuesday, Angarki Chaturthi, the queue starts the night before and winds for kilometres. Many walk barefoot from distant suburbs. The trust spends a large part of its offerings on hospital help, education and relief work.

The life of this place