City homemaker plans a museum for Ganesha idols

Located at a quiet neighbourhood in Nolambur stands the house called Nirvignalakshmi Illam. The house belongs to Nandhini Venkatesh, who has collected over 3,500 different kinds of Ganesha idols for the past couple of years. After gaining popularity, she has kept the idols for public display during Ganesh Chathurthi and Navratri festival. We met Nandhini at her residence and got to understand about her craze to collect pillaiyar (Ganesha) idols.

Her father, who was a school headmaster, used to celebrate all religious festivals in a grand manner at their village in Nagapattinam. She grew up seeing people throng her place to watch the idols displayed at her house. “After my marriage, we shifted to Singapore and I worked there for a couple of years. Later, I returned to Chennai for my children’s studies and bought a house in Nolambur. Co-incidentally, for the housewarming ceremony, I received a lot of Ganesha idols as gifts. I was surprised and thought why don’t I start collecting different types of idols. That’s how it all began. By 2015, I collected 1008 idols and set up a golu at home during Navratri and invited people to visit the house for the first time. To mark the occasion, I also made 1008 kozhukkattai and distributed it to people in the neighbourhood,” she tells us.

From then on, the homemaker started collecting her favourite God’s idols from various parts of the country and set up a public display during Ganesh Chathurthi and Navratri festival (for 10 days). “It has become a tradition now. Around 6,000 to 7,000 people visit my house during that time. Every year, I follow a theme for golu and for this year, one of the themes would be water crisis in the city,” Nandhini says.

To keep all the idols at one place, she built an extra floor in the house. The collection has Ganesha in different getups — Baahubali series, musician, artist, rower, Santa Claus, judge, teacher... list of the rare collection goes on. What’s even more interesting is that there are no identical dolls in the collection. Seeing her craze, her family and friends send her quirky Ganesha idols.

“After a point, it became tough for me to get unique pieces. So, when an exceptional theme comes in my mind, I get to make that design from the manufacturers I know. Also, while travelling I pick up dolls that are not there in the collection,” Nandhini says with a smile. In the future, she plans to set up a Ganesha idol museum that tells interesting folk and mythical stories.