I am a devout to the core but without being proclaimed to be so. I had to swear by this before I proceed further not
to mistake me as an atheist.
The festival season in India begins immediately after the monsoon or towards the end of the rainy season. These
festivals are celebrated with lot of frenzy & fervour. Both these words frenzy and fervour do not go well with devotion but with celebration, of course. The most important of them is 10 days long Ganesh Festival. The loud speakers installed at the Ganesh Pandals blare in full volume – occasionally bhajans and devotional songs but mostly the numbers from Hindi movies that too raunchy item like kanta lagaa re …… It is devoid of devotion but does attract people by the loud noise. People in Mumbai whether it is out of devotion to the Supreme or not, they do flock in these pandals – because it has been the most popular festival since pre-independence days and has become ritualistic 10 days program. During the pre-independence period, Shri Bala Gangadhar Tilak out of devotion to the motherland and more out of a necessity to unite people, he thought of this novel idea of holding sarvajanik ganeshotsav at every nook and corner. The idea was to bring people together in our noble fight against the colonial rule and to attain freedom from British tyranny. We got freedom but sarvajanik ganeshotsav remained the way it was only to be renewed with new vigor of commercialization. It is time for us to do a careful reasoning of our rituals – what is the purpose of our action? – if it is to invoke devotion then do these festivals have to be so loud? Why we are making such loud noise which even god may get scared. Do we really care for ourselves and our children who are subject to such high decibel sounds? The festival processions always block the vehicular traffic and create chaotic situation? When we worship God Ganesha, we have to be careful not to make obstacles and difficulties to other fellow human beings because Ganesha is known to be the remover of obstacles and difficulties. Let us be careful. During Diwali season we explode bombs to stun everything and everybody in the surrounding and also to shake the very structure of buildings we live in. The old and sick are the worst sufferers alongwith the new borns. Why do we put these people in tremendous hazards. What pleasure do we derive out of it? Let us celebrate Diwali by lighting the lamps and invoking the goddess Lakshmi in peace and harmony. Must we explode the firecrackers then let us be careful to select some low intensity fire crackers since not to break the tradition. There were reports in the newspapers and tv channels that the holi revelers become hooligans and resort to harm the people who belong to other religions. There is no
religious sanctity in such acts. All religious functions are meant to discipline our mind to make it fit for the spiritual journey - an inward journey in order to realize one’s self. Hence, by creating unpleasant situation and resorting to create hurdles in the name of religion, we are not actually following our religion but going against its very principle.
We are educated but not educated enough to understand what is good and bad. The rituals and practices we followed and prescribed in the religious books are for cleansing our minds which must have got polluted by our various worldly transactions. There is no doubt that god presence can be felt only in a peaceful and serene atmosphere and a devout should be careful to create a conducive atmosphere. In fact even the percussion instruments are differentiated into two categories – while one set belongs to god or known as godly the other set belongs to asuras or liked by asuras. The big Tamborins we bang on definitely belong to Asura and probably it denotes that we belong to that sect.
Let us change and make our festivals occasions to invoke the sublime spirit in us rather than following mere obsolete rituals. Let us make a spiritual journey by celebrating the festivals, chanting the bhajans, performing the yoga, serving the fellow humans, loving all living beings and co-existing with the nature. Hinduism is a way of life. Let us be proud of it.