That Mumbai loves its annual 10-day Ganesh festival is no secret. But the sheer magnitude of the financial capital's love and devotion for the elephant-headed god scaled new heights this year, as a host of other competing events and pilgrim centres were left lagging behind.

The giant Ganesh idol in the heart of Mumbai has been worshipped by an average of three lakh devotees every day for the last nine days. Mumbaiites stood in queues for eight to 12 hours for an audience with the idol named Lalbaugcha Raja, the king of Lalbaug.

While there were 8,805 Sarvajanik Ganesh Mandals in 2005, this year it went up to 11,200, says N Dahibaonkar, chairman of the co-ordination committee of all mandals. "There will be 15 lakh people at Girgaum Chowpatty on Sunday evening for the immersion," he adds. And even before the grand finale on Sunday, 1,34,207 idols have already been immersed.

The embellishments are more vivid than the numbers: the Lalbaugcha Raja has tied up with a portal for daily updates, traffic updates and step-by-step directions from your home to the idol's feet; just the diamond-studded tilak on the forehead of the Goud Saraswat Brahmin Mandal's Ganesha idol is worth Rs 14 lakh; all big mandals have queue systems within halls or adjacent grounds, modelled after the Vaikuntam Queue Complex at Tirupati or the Siddhivinayak Temple; the décor ranges from terrorism to the changing horizon of the city's mill lands; darshan timings are announced at many mandals, 24 hours on all day.