This Ganesha Chaturthi, I had imagined bringing something new into the world. Granny’s Pouch was supposed to make its appearance, and I had all the excitement that comes with giving an idea a shape, a name and a place of its own. But Granny’s Pouch did not quite make it to the doorstep this time. It is still waiting. Perhaps it needs a little more time. Perhaps I need a little more time. And perhaps that is not such a bad thing after all.
There is something about creative work that we forget when we become too eager to bring an idea into existence. We imagine that because we have thought of something, it should immediately become something tangible. We give ourselves deadlines, dates, formats and launch plans, and then wonder why the idea refuses to cooperate. But every creative thing begins as a thought, and a thought needs its own time to grow. Sometimes it needs to be played with, sometimes questioned, sometimes abandoned for a while and then rediscovered. And sometimes, quite unexpectedly, another thought comes along and says, “Not yet. Look at me instead.”
This year, that thought happened to be sitting right there on my website.
Bappa.
He has been there for much longer than I realised. In fact, when I look back to 2015, I can see that Bappa has quietly travelled with me through the different versions of my site, my writing and my own journey as a creator. What began as an image associated with the site has slowly become something much more personal. Somewhere along the way, Bappa stopped being merely an image and began to feel like an icon. Not an icon that I sat down and deliberately designed after a grand branding exercise, but one that simply stayed long enough to become part of the place.
There is something wonderfully funny about that. We spend so much time thinking about logos, mascots, colours, fonts and visual identities, trying to decide what should represent us. And here is Bappa, who seems to have wandered in sometime in 2015 and, eleven years later, is still sitting comfortably in the same house. He has seen the site change. He has seen my writing change. He has seen ideas arrive with great enthusiasm and then disappear into the slow pot. He has probably seen more versions of me than any carefully designed brand mascot ever could.
And now, in 2026, I think I am finally ready to acknowledge what perhaps Bappa knew all along: he is the bold icon of my site.
Why Bappa? That is easier to answer than I expected.
I love his mischief. There is something about the face of Ganesha that makes it difficult to imagine him being entirely serious all the time. Even when he is represented in a traditional form, there is often a sense that he knows a joke that the rest of us haven’t quite caught yet. His smile is warm, his expression is happy, and there is a wonderful lack of self-consciousness about him.
I love his comic relationship with Mooshak, his tiny vehicle. The great elephant-headed Ganesha riding a little mouse is, in itself, almost a comic strip waiting to happen. It is one of those images that does not need an explanation. There is the large and the small, the powerful and the tiny, sitting together as though this is the most perfectly ordinary arrangement in the world.
Perhaps that is one of the things I love about Bappa. He seems entirely comfortable with contrasts.
He can be majestic and mischievous. He can represent wisdom and still have the unmistakable quality of a child. He can be associated with removing obstacles and yet appear perfectly capable of creating a little mischief of his own. He can be the divine figure whom people invoke before beginning something important and, at the same time, the little Ganesha of the cartoons who gets into adventures, plays, laughs, solves problems and simply enjoys being himself.
I have always loved those little animated and illustrated versions of Ganesha. There is something very endearing about watching little Bappa discover the world. He plays. He experiments. He gets into trouble. He finds solutions. He sometimes needs help. He laughs. He tries again. He is curious about things. He is not constantly behaving like a solemn figure who has already figured out the entire universe.
And perhaps that is precisely why he belongs on a site about stories.
Stories have followed Ganesha for centuries. Some are amusing, some mischievous, some profound and some deeply elevating. There are stories about his wisdom, his patience, his relationship with his parents, his adventures with Mooshak and the many ways in which he encounters obstacles and finds a way through them. Some stories make us laugh first and think later. Others make us think first and perhaps understand their humour only much later.
That, too, feels very much like the territory of a writer.
We encounter a story. We think we understand it. We put it away. Years later we return to it and suddenly discover something we had completely missed. The story hasn’t necessarily changed. We have.
Perhaps this is one of the lessons Bappa has been quietly teaching me. Human beings are very good at missing what is being shown to them. We are often so busy looking for answers that we overlook the lesson sitting directly in front of us. We misunderstand, make mistakes, repeat ourselves and occasionally arrive at the same obstacle for the third or fourth time.
And yet there is always the possibility of another beginning.
That is one of the things I find comforting about Bappa. An obstacle does not necessarily mean the end of the road. Sometimes it is an invitation to look at the road differently. Sometimes we need patience. Sometimes we need courage. Sometimes we need to laugh at ourselves. Sometimes we simply need to try again.
And then there is the matter of Bappa’s appearance.
Let us address the white elephant in the room.
He is gloriously chubby.
Actually, “chubby” seems almost too polite a word for that magnificent round belly. Bappa has absolutely no interest in the current human obsession with sculpted bodies, impossible proportions and the idea that everyone must somehow look like a fitness advertisement.
He arrives exactly as he is.
And I love that.
There is something wonderfully liberating about a divine figure who is not presented as though he needs to undergo a makeover before being worthy of love, respect or worship. His body is part of his identity. His roundness is not something that needs to be hidden. He doesn’t appear embarrassed by it. He doesn’t spend his time trying to suck in his tummy. He simply sits there, smiles and gets on with the business of being Bappa.
Of course, I suspect there is a distinction in his mind between being comfortably chubby and being called fat.
Bappa may be enormously forgiving, but I am not entirely convinced he appreciates every adjective.
I can imagine someone looking at him and saying, “Oh, you’re fat.”
The smile disappears.
The trunk lifts slightly.
Mooshak quietly moves behind him.
And Bappa says, “I beg your pardon?”
He may accept himself completely, but that does not mean he has to accept somebody else’s careless judgement about him. There is a rather useful lesson hidden in that little comic image too. Acceptance of ourselves does not require us to accept every opinion someone else has about us.
Perhaps that is why I love him. He doesn’t seem to discriminate against himself or anybody else. He simply occupies his place in the world, with his enormous ears, his expressive eyes, his round belly, his trunk, his little mouse and his infectious smile.
And he seems remarkably patient with the rest of us.
This brings me back to Granny’s Pouch.
Perhaps it was not the right time for Granny to come out. Perhaps the thought needed another season to grow into itself. Perhaps I needed to stop trying to force a creative idea into existence simply because I had decided that it should happen now.
Bappa has been around long enough to know better.
Creation has its own rhythm. A thought begins somewhere quietly. It grows through observation, conversation, reading, remembering, wondering and playing. Then, at some point, the thought finds its form. A story becomes a story. A character becomes a character. A website finds its voice. A mascot becomes an icon.
Perhaps the right time is not when we announce that something will happen.
Perhaps the right time is when the thought has gathered enough life to take form.
And so, this Ganesha Chaturthi, Granny’s Pouch can wait.
Bappa, however, is not going anywhere.
From 2015 to 2026, he has watched this little corner of the internet evolve. He has stayed through changes, experiments, stories, pauses and beginnings. And now, as I think about where the site might go next, I find myself rather happy that he is still here.
Perhaps I did not choose Bappa as my mascot in any grand, deliberate way.
Perhaps he simply became one.
He stayed.
He smiled.
He watched.
He waited.
And somewhere along the way, he became part of the personality of the site.
So here we are, Bappa. Another Ganesha Chaturthi. Another beginning. Another year of stories waiting to be written, ideas waiting to find their form and perhaps a few adventures waiting around the corner.
You can bring Mooshak along.
There is room for both of you.
And while Granny’s Pouch waits for its moment, you can sit right here and keep watch over the stories.
I have only one request.
Please don’t let Mooshak discover the biscuit tin.
The “Sunfeast Farmlite” Sugar free oats cookies are mine.
Credit: In Convo with Goosey (AI Powered ChatGPT)
