We sat down to a feast — masala dosa, payasam and kadaboo, a steamed sweet-and-savory dish that is a special favorite of Lord Ganesha.

Prema – no one calls him by his real name Indu Shekhar, to his disgust – gently twitted my local contact Nisar, a Muslim, on his preference for meat-rich biriyanis. Prema and his family are Lingayats, conscious of their caste, proud of their vegetarian traditions.

The mid-monsoon rain of the morning had eased and humidity was building up. Indoors, the atmosphere was festive. Theertha, oblivious to protests, piled more food on our plates; Prema exchanged jocular barbs with Nisar and occasionally interrupted himself to brief me on local happenings.

Through it all I was conscious of a shadow, a sense that beneath the gaiety of Ganesh Chathurthi was a sadness kept in careful check. My eye strayed to the glass-fronted ‘showcase’ built into the opposite wall, crammed with idols of Shiva, Vishnu, Saraswati, Hanuman…

Two themes dominated this religious potpourri: Ganesha, represented in various sizes, shapes, materials and colors, and framed photographs of a young girl frozen in immortality.