The Lightless Diwali
Morning begins with posting of already many times forwarded message with pics of diyas and sweet to all friends far or near. Devoid of true spirit, the messages are dumped like garbage
By Mukesh Sharma.
Gone are the days when the much-awaited and talked about Diwali was a festival of shine and serenity, fanfare and feast, cuisine and costumes, gay and gaiety, clamor and crackers and light and lustre.
All the households would be cleaned out and white-washed
signifying the wiping out the ego and jealousy, and white washing the ‘mistakes’
with forgive and forget spirit. Deity of Hanuman would be worshipped in the
morning and the offerings of mashed puri
and batasha would be distributed in the neighborhood. Home cooked dainty
dishes would be made – no use of tawa
(hotplate) for the next few days.
Attired in best clothes, kids, women, and men would visit one another’s houses in the evening and exchange wishes and sweets. Overexcited kids would place earthen lamps on the parapet and wait anxiously for the fireworks after Lakshmi poojan (worship).
In fact, Diwali was a festival of collective celebration
promoting social bonhomie. Irrespective of caste, creed, and religion, it was a pure
festival of light – the light of fellow feelings, light of amity and comity,
and the light of mutual love and respect all over.
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| Lightless Digital green Diwali |
Unfortunately, now that divine Diwali has been replaced with deranging DIGITAL DIWALI. Morning begins with posting of already many times forwarded message with pics of diyas and sweet to all friends far or near. Devoid of true spirit, the messages are dumped like garbage. The relatives with sick ego seldom make first move even in posting messages. They often wait for other’s message and then respond selectively. No personal call and no personal visit. However, parents of married off daughters do visit with gifts and blessings, if their daughters are in the same city.
What pains this blogger to observe that over the years, Diwali has also become a business in this shop-keeping society – give and take – just hollow words empty of meanings.
Netas use Diwali to shore up their pro-Hindu image and show off their secular credentials. Though high ranking government officials, particularly, in vet departments and ministries enjoy freebies all the year, they receive fabulous gifts on Diwali from the well-known vested interest for the reason best known to them only. To a commoner, Diwali is customary and compulsory occasion to buy material happiness within manageable reach, for each member of the family. To a household maid, Diwali is an occasion of expectation for a better ‘pot-luck’. To street children, it is an occasion for hope for stomach-full of food with some sweet received from some good Samaritan and generous souls.
On the above, to our learned 'milords' Diwali is said to be a "stupid" festival of deadly noise pollution, light pollution, and environmental
pollution.
This new digital Diwali doesn’t dispel the darkness of ego, greed, wrath, envy, gluttony, lust and sloth. On the contrary, it gives shelter to all the seven deadly sins. Diwali has become lightless like a city plunged into darkness after the 'power failure'.
