It's a day for the devout to wish their deities and ask for wishes, but then it's the traders that get most out of religion and the fervour that surrounds it. Maybe its my inner cynic or misfit frowning in disdain but still I wonder if every aspect that surrounds civilisation including religion, faith and love aren't really based in the benefits of trade and finance.
The birthday of the playboy God who charmed women and stole from them, the birthday of the God whose head was severed to be replaced with an ill fitting elephant head which for some reason had a fair complexion, the wedding anniversary/birthday of that God who for the sake of his subjects forsake the woman he couldn't protect from prying eyes that he undertook on the very same day we celebrate, these events and more in the Hindu Calendar that we spare no efforts for, and all those that other religions hold up as sacred, are they really for the devout to remember the Gods that apparently created them, or are they meant for displays of grandeur that we can't really afford and rather not avoid?
What is it about getting an idol of the Lord or the Goddess at the auspicious time of the year into our homes and refilling our hearts and minds with faith and hope that sways one and all to such an extent that we turn a blind side to the extravagance of it all?
Would this all permeating and all powerful God be put off by the lack of a fresh idol in the sacred space during this time of the year?
Would he/she be any less powerful and kind if we did not offer them these favours?
It's not to mock that I ask but to understand what is it that drives us. Faith and fear, hope for prosperity and success, a sense of abiding duty to traditions that are no longer relevant in the context of our lives, which of these sentiments and feelings bring us all together to repeat the exercise and the rituals every year? Or is it when looked at from a wider lense, as of the living beings in the universe and on a platform that puts us all together as creatures of habit and comfort, an endeavour to keep a constant calendar of recurrences that not only promotes livelihood but adds to the practice of community and enables us humans to survive as a global civilisation?
It's true that back in the day, when there was no Internet and the world out of the boundaries we saw on a political map was classified as "Abroad" and "Foreign" meant not unknown but a different place and a different country, these were the identifiers, the tell tale moles that created a mental image and were physically responsible for taking us through the year. Also esoterically, how would we mark the progress of the earth around the sun without events to break in the monotony, events designed to amazingly answer various needs of co-habitation.
Therefore, even though the blatant profit making function that these days fulfil poses unpleasant questions, the sense of community and neighbourhood that they manage to bring and in spite of the mostly useless feelings of despair and blind faith they generate, for all the good that they inadvertently cause, the livelihood of the idol makers and craftsmen going from worse to bad and for the variety that they bring to our otherwise droll lives and causing me to ponder, it's a Happy Birthday to Mr. Vigneshwara.
Namaste!
The birthday of the playboy God who charmed women and stole from them, the birthday of the God whose head was severed to be replaced with an ill fitting elephant head which for some reason had a fair complexion, the wedding anniversary/birthday of that God who for the sake of his subjects forsake the woman he couldn't protect from prying eyes that he undertook on the very same day we celebrate, these events and more in the Hindu Calendar that we spare no efforts for, and all those that other religions hold up as sacred, are they really for the devout to remember the Gods that apparently created them, or are they meant for displays of grandeur that we can't really afford and rather not avoid?
What is it about getting an idol of the Lord or the Goddess at the auspicious time of the year into our homes and refilling our hearts and minds with faith and hope that sways one and all to such an extent that we turn a blind side to the extravagance of it all?
Would this all permeating and all powerful God be put off by the lack of a fresh idol in the sacred space during this time of the year?
Would he/she be any less powerful and kind if we did not offer them these favours?
It's not to mock that I ask but to understand what is it that drives us. Faith and fear, hope for prosperity and success, a sense of abiding duty to traditions that are no longer relevant in the context of our lives, which of these sentiments and feelings bring us all together to repeat the exercise and the rituals every year? Or is it when looked at from a wider lense, as of the living beings in the universe and on a platform that puts us all together as creatures of habit and comfort, an endeavour to keep a constant calendar of recurrences that not only promotes livelihood but adds to the practice of community and enables us humans to survive as a global civilisation?
It's true that back in the day, when there was no Internet and the world out of the boundaries we saw on a political map was classified as "Abroad" and "Foreign" meant not unknown but a different place and a different country, these were the identifiers, the tell tale moles that created a mental image and were physically responsible for taking us through the year. Also esoterically, how would we mark the progress of the earth around the sun without events to break in the monotony, events designed to amazingly answer various needs of co-habitation.
Therefore, even though the blatant profit making function that these days fulfil poses unpleasant questions, the sense of community and neighbourhood that they manage to bring and in spite of the mostly useless feelings of despair and blind faith they generate, for all the good that they inadvertently cause, the livelihood of the idol makers and craftsmen going from worse to bad and for the variety that they bring to our otherwise droll lives and causing me to ponder, it's a Happy Birthday to Mr. Vigneshwara.
Namaste!
1 comment:
Festivals like most things have just been reduced to a ritual. With a Ganesh pandal every lane, its more of celebrating ourselves than the Lord.
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