Sharm-ka-taaj

I had been to Mahabaleshwar this week. Well, four days this week. And I missed Criminal Minds for it. I am going to make-good that sometime soon, but what I am now writing is about an advertisement I watched on TV.

Aamir Khan was on it, and it was about Indians lacking, in general, a sense of pride and joy in keeping their surroundings clean. I, at the risk of being labelled an unpatriotic twerp, I wonder how apathy and selfishness amongst us Indians have reached those alarming levels of caring to be clean, but not enough about keeping clean. So, spitting and urinating and defecating in the open, wiping your hands well enough only to push the tissue out of the window (discreetly, ‘sophisticatedly’), and forcing others to think your way—considering garbage to be carried around as some burden that needs carting around would feature on the top no-no list.

To say that all of us are like that would be a gross humiliation of Indian values. The fact that we have been an agricultural nation, but are no more exclusively that, hasn’t, I guess, registered properly in our consciousnesses. Fifty years ago, our wastes were hugely only biodegradable. Now, for we have extended our arms in the plastic industries, we have more medical and chemical and non-biodegradable garbage we ever had before. We who say ‘बूँद-बूँद से ही सागर बनता है।‘(the sea is, but made of drops of water) fail to understand that every small piece of toxic addition to the environment is actually affecting our living and others’.

I don’t know if the ad-campaign will attain its goals as soon as it hopes to do, but I believe that if there is a शर्म का ताज campaign and if they take volunteers, I am resolutely going to be a part of it.

Light and Dark

When I opened this page, I expected a long and arduous report from Jai about how much he loves celebrating Diwali, with mellifluous adjectives and ardent descriptions. But I had forgotten that Jai is not in town. And hence, the responsibility of expressing these sentiments falls upon me.

I am neither a lover of bright lights nor of pitch dark. I prefer it somewhere in the middle - like the meaning of my name - I prefer twilight. What attraction, then, does the Festival of Lights hold for me? Simply put, staying true to my ferocious Aries blood, I like the vigour and excitement that this time of the year exudes. Yes, there are a few short tempers, a frown here and there, but who can remain upset for long when the house is overflowing with sweet delicacies and the hustle-bustle of busy feet? For even if you have no close relations, or are not in the habit of going on vacations, Diwali is celebrated with as much enjoyment as it would be if you were on a green hilltop with crackers bursting in the chill night sky.

Isn't it strange that the festival of lights - Diwali - occurs so close to the festival of dark terrors - Hallowe'en? Soon the days will start to ebb early and the nights will lengthen. In the West, children in costumes of varying designs will step out and go 'trick-or-treat'ing. Some say that phantoms rise on All Hallows' Eve, that the dead shake in their earthly tombs, while some others profess that it is an occasion to invoke spiritual lessons about death and mortality in the minds of children.

While Diwali has gathered up her sari and bid us farewell until next year, Hallowe'en approaches in his dark robe, silent and watchful. Happy Diwali and a great Hallowe'en to everyone (and everything) out there!

Laus Deo

To anyone who has read The Lost Symbol, this phrase makes perfect sense. Praise God. Why, you would ask, am I talking about God here when Jai baba has pronounced himself 'generally ignostic'? Well, Jai baba's 'a little Deist philosophy' might be a scrap off my Theism.

Simply put, I believe in God. Why I praise God, is because God is a genius. A thought occurred to me today, as thought often do on long walks. The complexity of the Universe as we see it, the amount of webs in it, the tangle of one life - yours, mine, Person X's - could be created only by a God-force. The human mind, though capable of enormous powers perhaps as yet unknown, struggles to create even a single variable - a single sentence, a single note of music - fearing retribution, risking failure. Then God, who is of course superhuman, is truly praiseworthy to be able to set out this complex web of Fate, Destiny and countless living creatures with minds of their own.

How did God accomplish Creation? Where did God come from? Who is God? Or as Jai would ask, what is God?

I am not here to seek those answers. Perhaps I am not yet ready. I have learned a few lessons before these sixteen years of my life - I have mastered the vices of Hatred and Murder. How I know this, I do not know. But I do know I have mastered them, for I seem to have carried those virtues with me in this life. And I am sure, I am close to meeting with the greatest soul, the Paramatma, the Parabrahman, the Great Architect of the Universe. Until then, I must learn to look out and marvel.

Truly, Laus Deo. Praise God.

Hindu. For A Day.

I am generally ignostic. 




Add to that a little Deist philosophy. And on one day of the year (which actually is my favourite day on the calendar) I turn Hindu. 

Being brought up in a South Indian Hindu family, I have always been in a house where Navratri and Dussehra are important festivals. The day before Dussehra is when you tuck away books (thanks to exams, symbolically only) and musical instruments. On the next day, you get to play/ read them.

As though it were a new beginning. It really is. Enmity is to be forgotten, and seeds of affinity and friendship are to be sown. The Mahishasuramardini (translated as 'the slayer of the bull-headed demon) slayed the Mahishasur (the demon) this day, after having gone through 9 days of battle. Pain and humiliation, hatred and disgust, hostility and isolation, ill-will and distrust, disrespect and jealousy, the ten of them, are to go down the drain, never to see the light of the day again. On the last day, you start new things    start learning an art or a science, set new goals, worship the things your life has depended on in someway (as a way to thank them    like in Mumbai, people worship and decorate the local trains, truly the lifeline of Mumbai). It's a day you worship Saraswati, the Goddess of knowledge and intellect; she is my favourite Hindu Goddess. 




It's a day I hold to be a harbinger of goodness ahead. Maybe the world will get a little better, maybe the evil will evaporate a little, maybe ignorance will be driven away a little. 




I like to believe that it does.