The vibrant colors of Lord Ganesha

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The vibrant colors of Lord Ganesha


Ganesh chaturthi one of the most auspicious Hindu festivals marks the beginning of festive season among Hindus. Ganesh chaturthi is widely celebrated across the country. We worship Ganesha - the lord of wisdom and knowledge to bless us with true knowledge and enlighten our souls towards the final salvation. Just one week before the festival day, markets start filling with idols of ganesha. These idols come in varying shapes and sizes, some really huge, some small, some come with lot creativity displaying ganesha in variety of postures. The sight is truly mesmerizing, it makes the onlookers to admire and stare in awe.
I truly believe that these festivals will bring us close; we reunite with our relatives and friends, distribute sweets and take a break from our repetitive daily life. But there is a whole new aspect to festivals these days. The trend is changing, the festivals today are observed in more pompous way. I would like to account what I saw in my hometown this year. Not just people buy the idols to worship in their homes, the communities or mandals contribute and get one common idol for their locality which is generally huge in size. These idols are brought from market to their respective places in a very grand way. There are usually two vehicles, the one which carries the huge idol the other which carries the huge speakers and music system. The music is generally some remixed version of bollywood song played very loud. Actually it doesn’t stop at bollywood music, these days even songs of Akon, Enrique, Venga boys are played on unusually huge speakers. People unaware of their surroundings lose control and dance in exceeding amount of zeal. There are colors (gulal ) thrown everywhere, crackers burnt ( usually the loud soundings once ). And they travel at such a low pace that it takes them almost 5 to 6 hours to reach the place meant for idol to be kept. All this loud noise, unnecessary traffic jam, unpleasing dance makes the life of a common man a lot more irritable. I just wonder what lord ganesha himself feels juxtaposed between crazy dancers and high volume music. There are few questions that arise in my mind that I would like to ask the Lord Ganesha himself:
·         Do you enjoy the bollywood music? ( Dhink chika , aare pritam pyare …)
·         Is such high volume really necessary? Or can u use headphones?
·         Is your tolerance level really that high?
·         Isn’t that dance really unnecessary?
Well I am sure Ganesha has a right answer for everything in this world, but I just feel pomposity has reached its heights. People should celebrate and enjoy but at what cost? We should never forget the true purpose of a festival. The present world is slowly losing the true connect between god and our life. The true essence of the festival is to share happiness, get back together and pray lord almighty to bless us all and guide us all on a righteous path.
Today as I took my brothers new bike and whisked pass the traffic, I slowed down at a particular street courtesy a huge possession carrying Ganesha idol was passing through. Kids drenched in orange color were dancing in a very frenzied manner, the saffron flag was held high, music from a popular bollywood movie was being played, orange color filled the air around, some senior folks were clearing the way for a smooth passage, some grownups were burning crackers seeing which ladies young and old tried getting back inside their homes. Among all this; in the centre sat Ganesha’s idol magnificent, profound and graceful. My eyes closed for a second, I prayed – “teach the mankind the value of silence, let this world be more peaceful"

~Surya
In Devotion

Comments

  1. Mick16 January 2013 at 22:30

    I dont know why this has not recieved any comments yet. It is very real, what you feel. But it is necessary to understand mob psychology to understand why people behave the way they do. To them we are bland and disrespectful and our devotions are quite shallow.

    But I guess its true when people say - 'To his, his own'.

    I will give you this though, they scare the women folk more than you expressed here and that definitely needs to change, and we can do with better music. The roads are completely destroyed after a procession like that

    ReplyDelete

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