While she was born in Mangalore, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan has lived all her life in Mumbai. As told to us by her mother Vrinda Rai, “Aishwarya from her childhood was a puja girl, who enjoyed all pujas in the house, be it at the time of Ganpati, Diwali, Dussehra or any other.'' Aishwarya, coincidentally, then got married to Abhishek Bachchan whose family too, is extremely religious and big Ganpati bhakts.

Aishwarya was the special guest this year for the final aarti at the Siddhivinayak Temple before the visarjan yatra and she came along with her extremely cute daughter Aaradhya and her parents Vrinda and Krishnaraj Rai. In a recent interview, her father-in-law Amitabh Bachchan had told us how Aaradhya knows the Ganpati aarti by heart. Telling us her reasons for making her daughter learn the aarti, Aishwarya said, “I actually enjoy the aarti myself. I feel it's such a beautiful song, so right from the beginning I would make Aaradhya listen to it very often in the evening. I tend to put on the aarti when we start lighting diyas in the house in the evening. So she enjoys it. For her, it's this absolutely enjoyable number. We all keep getting so many Ganpatis of all sizes. So I have this little mandir at home, where I have put all these Ganpatis. There are many small-sized Ganpatis in the mandir, which Aaradhya would play with since she was small in the mandir only. So Ganpati was always a familiar deity for her. She's very excited today.“ Aaradhya and Aishwarya are both November born Scorpions. We asked Aishwarya a quality Aaradhya has like her and she said, “I think she too is a sensitive girl which is a wonderful quality to have.“