Dashera- Little Happiness & Little Sadness

           Starting with- Happy Dashera to all of you !!! The 10th Day of Navratri is considered as the festival of Dashera...For the ten days- Indians play Dandiya and perform the Gujarati Dance Form- Garba..Worship the Idol of Devi...Devi has 9 different avatars so Its hard to give a name to her....Idol of Devi is worshipped for the ten days same as we do in the Ganeshotsav...And the 10th day we immerse the idol of Devi in the river....My society-Kasturi organized this festival just below my balcony....

         This evening we had gone to watch the Durga Visarjan at the ‘pond’. As scores of Durga, from tiny to tall – but always benign and divine – made their way on the shoulders of devotees down to the final immersion place, as the Devi-Seated on Tiger gradually sank into the muddy water, I kept feeling sadder and sadder. I remembered feeling absolutely bereft.

         I felt sad at the ending of the festivities, at the drowning of the beautiful idols (created with so much passion and patience), at the loss of celebration and beauty. Each Dashami – and today at the Visarjan ground – even as the celebrations reached a crescendo, even as the band/dhaak/drumbeats rose to a manic climax, even as the dancers whirled and twirled in a frenzy, I would cry silently, mourning the passing away of another year, another festival.

          I was surprised to see elders sharing my tears.  “You know why the Visarjan is necessary? Because it teaches us to let go. Because it reminds us that nothing is permanent – not happiness, not beauty. Neither the carefully-crafted idol, nor the week-long joy can be possessed forever. We have to disengage…unclutch our fists and let go.”

          Happy to be witnessing the noise and colour and dance and statues, happy with their newly-bought balloons and pinwheels. And I felt that the Visarjan also teaches us to have faith – faith that this will all happen again next year – the holiness and the happiness. As the scriptures say, Change is like a cycle: what is, will go, and what will go, will come back.

        This is How 28th September..My Dashera Celebrations came to an end.....

Abhilash Ruhela-Veeru