Threadless Tees’ Ganesha designs upset Hindus

Disturbed Hindus have asked Chicago headquartered

‘Threadless Tees’ company to remove inappropriate Ganesha designs on some of the T-shirts displayed on their website. The designs showcase ‘Nerdy Lord Ganesha’. It’s a nerdy take on Lord Ganesha where he holds a tobacco pipe, glass of wine, etc. In another design, Ganesha is shown as ‘Ping Pong God’, ‘Ganesha alien’ and ‘Ganeshamadonna’ (Ganesha and Mother Mary merged together in one figure).

Rajan Zed, President of Universal Society of Hinduism in a statement in Nevada said that Lord Ganesha is a highly respected and worshiped deity and one cannot loosely create designs in reimagined versions for dramatic effects for mercantile greed. Such absurd depiction of Lord Ganesha with no scriptural backing is hurtful to the devotees. He says “Hinduism is the oldest and third largest religion in the world with about one billion followers and a rich philosophical thought and it should not be taken lightly. Symbols of any faith, larger or smaller, should not be mishandled.”

Founded in 2000, ‘Threadless Tees’, whose tagline is ‘Nude No More’, is a community-centered online apparel company of skinnyCorp which also has a store in Chicago and branch office in Boulder (Colorado, US). Also referred to as ‘World's Most Inspiring Online Design Community’, it claims over one million members.