This Ganesh Chaturthi, travellers flock to Chennai’s ‘Visa Ganesha’ temple

This Ganesh Chaturthi, Chennai’s unique Lakshmi Visa Ganapathi temple is crowded with people hoping to travel abroad at a time when getting visas is tougher than ever before

Even as the roar of an aircraft taking off fills the air, the sound of temple bells ring in the quiet neighbourhood of Vrindavan Nagar in Chennai's Pazhavanthangal.

Here, the priests' plate bears offerings you usually find in temples: flowers and coconut.

But, it also has something else: visa papers.

Local belief is that if you pray to this deity, your visa papers get processed easily, facilitating an easy trip to the country of your choice. This wasn't the original intent when this small temple was built by the late R Jagannathan in 1987 outside his residence, but it has become popular for that. As local legend goes, in 2009 a few people, who were preparing for an overseas official trip, placed their papers in front of the deity and prayed... and their visas came through. Since that day, Jagannathan decided to name it 'Lakshmi Visa Ganapathi’, a sobriquet it proudly wears now.

Ever since Jagannathan’s demise during the second wave of COVID-19, his son, J Mohan Babu, an IT employee has been running the temple with his wife, Sangeetha. “During the pandemic, there was a drastic decrease in the number of devotees here due to lockdown and travel restrictions. But things have picked up in the last few months,” he says.

Mohan adds, “As many people come to Chennai for their visa process, they hear about this temple by word of mouth or through media and land up here, hoping that it will help them. And in many cases, it has.”

Though the temple sees many devotes, those seeking visas to the US and Canada are the highest in number. Visitors include IT employees, students and families, unified by one request: help me get a visa to fly abroad.