Beyond the lights of Diwali

It is Diwali time- the time of the year when majority of the Indians living in India or abroad are on a festive spirit. The festival of lights, it is said, although the cacophony of crackers piercing the night shows it is not only light, but sound as well.

Whether it is the awareness drive on pollution, or the exorbitantly high price of the crackers or some other unexplained reason, it is a fact that at least in Mumbai, we see a drop in the noise level this year, which is welcome as the city on any given day is not exactly a Silent Night, Holy Night spectre anyway.

This is the time for festivities , of gifting to loved ones. The stores are doing roaring business, online and brick & mortar alike, with people buying in a frenzy as if tomorrow does not exist.

This is the festival of lights- with darkness to be kept behind as the light of happiness and wisdom pierces through the dark dreary night and Goddess Lakshmi showers her blessings. Amidst all these lights, we have the following headlines staring at us. Somewhere in a village in this country , the folks are amused and puzzled at the SC ruling of marital sex before adulthood being a crime as almost all the girls born and living there are married when they are minors. Somewhere else another know-it-all religious edict comes out that posting photos on social media is against religion. In another headline, we have a few self styled historians re-writing history to suit their selfish benefit so that the masses can be fed on some dogma for some more time. Someplace else , a son butchers his parents to death for money. 

All this and much more also happened in this country amid the flash of lights and sparklers as we ushered in another Happy Diwali, as we celebrated the festival of lights. 

What light , I wonder ? Is it only the light of phosphorus and zinc that we hanker about ? Or is it that light that the great bard had dreamed of when he wrote those magical lines : 

"....Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way 

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit 

Where the mind is led forward by thee 

Into ever-widening thought and action 
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake...." 

When will we wake up to see this light , if ever at all ?

But let us count day by day as we say Happy Diwali !

How much more bizarre can it get ?

The Taj Mahal vanished for the second time. The first time it vanished , it was in the hands of the great PC Sorcar, one of the greatest magicians of our times, only to reappear reassuringly after some minutes.

This time it has vanished (or has it been banished ?) from the brochure of UP Govt Tourism booklet, apparently for not being Indian enough !!

A monument, often called poetry in stone, whose photo adorns almost all picture postcards and posters foreigners first have a look at when they start reading about India; a monument which symbolizes love; a monument which has drawn more tourists to the country from the world over than perhaps any other; a monument which becomes the topic of discussion whenever an Indian meets a foreigner outside India and discussion veers toward India and its touristic appeal; a monument which is standing in its place , right in the middle of India, undivided, colonial , sovereign alike, is not Indian enough ??? Just how lame is that as an excuse ?

Within the country , we do not have Indians. We have Punjabis, Biharis, Bengalis, Marathis , North Indians , South Indians, Tamils, Gujaratis etc etc etc. Within that we have Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs , Christians etc etc. Within that we have Bhrahmins, Shudras, Dalits, et al. 

As if that is not enough, now we do not want to own what the history and heritage has given us ? How much more narrow minded can we get ? Why do we want to rewrite history ? Will it change my future or my present ? Will it feed the poor ? Will it educate the masses ?

We get what we deserve, goes a saying. If we have got politicians (and here I am not referring to the party in power only, the opposition parties by no means any better) that we have got, it is solely because we as a country have always agreed to be divided. It feels more secure to be identified with a language or a religion than as a citizen ? Why ??

Essence of a Durga Puja

The Durga Puja, the most important event in a Bong life is just over. Although essentially a festival originating from religious roots, it has long ago surpassed the narrow boundaries set by religion and transcended to a festival of humanity, while maintaining its religious fervour and roots. 

The Sarbojonin Durga Puja , which essentially means a celebration for all,  is a celebration of mankind and I have seen few events that encompass the celebration of human life better than this. In this festival which essentially celebrates the triumph of good over evil, there is no narrow boundary limits of caste, creed, colour even religion. I have come across people practising other faiths also embracing this celebration as their own, part of Puja committees in Kolkata, rising above the narrow dogmas of faith. 

In a community Durga Puja, it is not only the Puja or the worship of the Goddess which is the point. Although the worship is done with all piety and religious rules, there are many events and happenings surrounding it for weeks together which encompass human beings irrespective of caste, creed, religion. When in a community Puja, lots of devotees queue up for the Bhog (lunch served after offering to the God), no one has ever encountered a question as to what the person being served is following as a faith, what is his/her roots etc. It does not matter whether the person is a Hindu, a Christian , a Muslim or a Jew or an agnostic or even an atheist. Or whether he /she has come there on foot or in a Cadillac. It just does not matter ! What matters is that the person is a human being.

Revolving around the celebration is a melting pot of cultural events, not always linked to Bengali language. So while there would be the usual dash of Rabindrasangeet or the Bengali music bands, there would also be Hindi songs of Bollywood or other language depending upon where the festival is being held. 

The fun fair extending around the pandals would be a gastronomic paradise with a melange of offerings to tickle the palate of everyone. It is not unusual to see people gorging on fish fry or jhalmuri at 1:30AM. 

The best part about this festival is that no one really is kept out because of religious dogmas. Without doubt, the Bongs have one of the most accepting nature and have risen above the narrow boundaries of ritualistic practices which divide rather than unite. Lot is being written nowadays contrary to this but I dismiss the same as ramblings of narrow uninformed minds , to whom the well that they live in is the ocean. Alas !

Long live this spirit of Sarbojonin Durga Puja- long live this spirit of humanity !

Please raise your hands to take responsibility

Rains bring Mumbai to a halt. Nothing new in this news. We hear this every year at least once, sometimes twice. There are some spots in the city which are prone to water-logging after every shower and brings unforeseen challenges to all in the city. 

This year we had a few days like that again. I happened to be returning to Mumbai after a business trip earlier this week and courtesy rains and a stuck aircraft on the main runway, a flight of two and a half hours was delayed by three hours. The ordeal did not end there. After landing in Mumbai , we were informed by the hapless pilot to the equally hapless passengers that the airfield was full of aircraft in view of the cascading effect and it may well take some time to find a parking slot. This some time finally became one hour and fifteen minutes and the fact that this was unfolding at the wee hours of the morning added to the trauma.

Heavy rains are nothing new, in a city whose average rainfall is 2metre in a season. Flight and train delays are also nothing new in these times. But the fact is that this airport , which is the busiest airport in the country , is continously operating at 120% of its capacity which no machine, mechanism or system is designed to sustain. And therefore , one incident of a runway closure brings the whole airport to its knees, the secondary runway being far too short to operate all the flights.

A new airport was conceived in 1997. In about 20 years , ie in Feb 2017 the bidder was finalised. The expected completion of this project is anybody's guess. We are sure by the time the work is completed , the infrastructure will be too less for the traffic load.

Successive governments of various political combinations in this country have ignored infrastructure, paying more attention to class, caste, creed, religion to keep people engaged. We aspire to be a modern nation but get stuck in the same loop of self destruction by procastination. Political parties have been talking big before elections and repeatedly under delivering. I would love to see the persons concerned raising their hands and taking responsibility for the lack of accountability that they have been demonstrating for years together.

This day that time !

There are some days which transports you to the past like a memory fly past with such clarity that you wonder whether it is really past or present. There is once such day , ie 17th Sept. 

For some obscure reason not fully understood to me , this day is the fixed day for Vishwakarma Puja in Bengal. Although all the Hindu Gods and Godesses always follow Hindu almanac, this particular God of engineering keeps his appointment day with the mortals fixed on 17th Sept, irrespective of anything else. I have not understood this fixation with the Gregarian calendar, inspite of the dhak and the bhog and the dadhikarma and all else Bong !

Having grown up in an industrial town Durgapur, some 160 odd kilometres from Calcutta, now Kolkata, this day was a special day during my childhood. This was the day we got to see festivities all around, and multiple invitations used to come for my dad and we used to go in tow. This was the day we got to go inside the coke oven/power plant premises and gape in wonder at things which actually were far beyond the childhood brain to comprehend. I recall this day as the day when the evening invite was fixed at one such electrical substation where my father had been attached to for some time , and the folks there never missed to give him an invite till the last year of his employment. We children uses to frolic around in the otherwise sombre substation premises, of course under the watchful eyes of the elders , lest we touch or go near something dangerous. 

Many many years later , having graduated in electrical engineering and then taking up a career in that stream, these equipment are part and parcel of my daily life, but these memories stay etched in my brain as the fragrance of a flower long withered but still lingers in freshness. Now out of Bengal for many years , I try to my best to explain to my daughter the sights and the sounds long gone by. The memory stays afresh while the clock ticks and the years go by, the bad taste in the mouth remains when we hear that most of the industries in that town are past their prime, fallen prey to abject trade unionism and misled ideologies which have not withstood the test of time.

Hope is a real word

Something in me was missing as I had not posted a single post for last couple of years. Whether the reason is sheer lethargy or running for the roji-roti which keeps your passion in the back-burner I am not too sure, but what the heck, its better to do what I want than what I do not !

Lot of things happened in between in this hiatus, with de-mon ( demon ?), GST, blasts , cacophony of phony politicos, booze ban , 500 metre highway, heinous crimes, godmen to say a few.... 

Wonder what has changed in this interim period ? We wait for the acche din as a parched earth waits for the rain, but yet to see the economic recovery hit the ground running. At least do see its not in deep slumber...that is the hope. Hope is a big word and we cling to that last straw in these lacklustre times.

Oxymorons for the morons

When I was in school my good teachers taught me a lot of grammar , some of which I could learn and retain. One of things I recall having learnt was the oxymoron. We had various examples of it also.

But never knew that sometime so much later, we would have a new example to contend with. And a real life example at that !

As per the dictionary meaning of Subsidy is “A benefit given by the government to groups or individuals usually in the form of a cash payment or tax reduction. The subsidy is usually given to remove some type of burden and is often considered to be in the interest of the public”

Another term we have is VIP. Although not a word to the true sense of the word, it means “A person of great importance or influence, especially a dignitary who commands special treatment “

Now the question comes – can a person who demands treatment and enjoys privilege as a VIP (the stress here is on the word “demand”) can also qualify for a subsidy ? And is that in the interest of the public ?

Our parliamentarians declare their assets before elections which for most run into such astronomical numbers that you sometimes misinterpret it as turnover of a company or business. Once they become parliamentarians they become VIP, throw their weight around (sometimes both figuratively and literally ) and demand privileges which are not for the common man. And then they have subsidy for their meals ! The subsidy bleeds the exchequer by Rs.60 Crores a year !

In a country where millions do not have enough to feed their families, where babies die out of malnourishment, where families lose their loved ones as they do not have enough to pay for medicine, where death is sometimes welcomed to get rid of this life of penury for some ! In the same country, we have people coming in BMW, Toyota Fortuner and eat meals at this kind of subsidized prices.

VIP Subsidy- the new oxymoron ? The ultimate moron becomes the tax payers !

Definitely maybe !