Retelling the Ganesha story!

I like to celebrate my festivals with stories, music, flowers - oh and food too. I wanted to tell and explore the allegoric narrative of Little Ganesha (Elephant-headed Hindu deity) with my 3 year old who obviously stayed on with his listening ears, till we got mid-way. So the full version had to go somewhere. Again this is the same old narrative, but with some bells and whistles -

It is a beautiful day in the life of Ganesha and Karthikeya (Brother). Their parents Shiva (Father) & Parvati (Mother) tell them "Oh little ones, we are about to have a fun race between the two of you. Whoever comes around the universe first, gets to be the winner and do I have to say, you get a prize too (apparently the fruit of knowledge) and...before you could think twice, let's get you on your mark and GO!" 

Little Karthikeya jumps on his peacock (his mount or vehicle) which can fly at the speed of light, and goes vrooommmmm into the skies!

Ganesha on the other hand has a Shrew (mouse-like or mole-like 'moonjoor') for a vehicle which perhaps walks a little faster than you or I do. In all fairness, Ganesha looks at his little mouse / shrew and tells "Um, we can do this".

So he slowly takes the little mouse around his Mother and Father three times in a row, then bows down to them. 

The little mighty Karthikeya has nearly finished by now, he comes back huffing and puffing after his voyage around the universe - "Brother, here I am! But you don't look like you have even started!" 

Shiva and Parvati looking puzzled at each other 'Well, it can't get any trickier'

And then looking to Karthikeya they tell "Oh dear, we think Ganesha is the winner". Clearly, Karthikeya is not happy! 

But now let's pause there; why do you think they sided with Ganesha?

As the story has it, to Ganesha the whole universe is nothing but a manifestation of the underpinning reality personified as Parvati-Shiva. I think to myself, it sounds like the duality that is matter/antimatter, yin/yang, fermions/bosons, many more - literally equal, opposite components that make up everything we see. Any and all of those interpretations are just beautiful to me, although the matter/antimatter concept is my most favorite.

And by now my kid is back with me telling all the possible opposites that he can think of: "may be black/white, long/short..." Well at least, we had a fun story-telling session.

Today we remember the story of Ganesha. To me, that symbolizes this search for reality and this discriminating intellect that, may be is alluded to removing obstacles. Is this why He is sought for before we begin anything? Is that perhaps why the kozhukkattai (where you dig in deeper for the reality, the filling) is symbolized as His favorite. Or may be someone wanted to promote the kozhukkattai back in the day. And that is an endless list of possibilities!

P.S. If a matter and antimatter particle come into contact, they appear to annihilate each other in a burst of energy. But when I look around, I wonder as to why nature favors matter to anti-matter! But sure, the universe knows something that we don't.