This Festival Season – The Obvious is what we see.

The Indian Calendar has two broad streams – Shalivahan Shaka and the Vikram Samvat. Both these calendars have the same months in the same order.

If you observe carefully, you have a long festival season that begins around mid-July and extends right up to Diwali around October – November.

This is followed by a break of a couple of months till around mid-February. The next two months mid-April, that is the period between Mahashivratri thru to the harvest festival season covering Holi in between is the busy season again. This is followed by a lull from mid-April through to mid-July.

The most intense festive period according to me and the focus of this post is the period between mid-July through mid-November. The festive atmosphere is amazing with very high energy levels prevailing all around.


During this period we have at least three festivals which witness spontaneous and large participation from the masses. We have the Janmashtami (or Gokul Ashtami) celebrations, Ganapati celebrations and lastly Navaratri festivities.

It is my attempt to see these festivities from a different perspective. The first would be to see and appreciate what is visible and, therefore, obvious. Going further, it would be very interesting to examine what is beyond the obvious. To be fair, it is imperative to look at the seemingly dark side and what I consider the brightest aspect of these festivities.


The obvious that one sees, as part of these celebrations, is

a. Plenty of glitter and elaborate arrangements
b. High levels of devotion
c. Strong interest from the people to participate in such festivities as evidenced by large crowds and long serpentine queues,
d. Participation of many people in the organizing efforts,
e. Popularity of thematic presentations like Environment, Pollution Control, Peaceful co-existence, anti-terrorism themes…..
f. Competitive spirit amongst various groups,
g. Cultural programmes, various competitions and sports events for the residents of that area.

There is no limit to what else can be added as part of these festivities. All creative juices are in full flow.

In the next post, I will examine What is beyond the obvious?

Ganesh Chaturthi Celebrations – It’s meaning to me

Today is the fourth day (Chaturthi) of the first half (Shukla paksh) of Bhadrapad month as per the Hindu calendar. This is day of Ganesha or Ganapati and celebrated with great devotion in Maharashtra and rest of the country.

Literally, every household is a picture of devotion, excitement, energy and supreme happiness. I have friends who tell me that they feel so energetic and fresh in spite of being on their feet the day long and sleeping so little. They also feel the vacuum and loss of energy when the Lord departs at the end of ten days of festivity.

I have always marveled at this total change in the atmosphere for ten days. Maybe, I should also add the twenty days preceding this day too.

Every year, we go to the GSB – Wadala Math for our poojas and this year is no different. I pondered on what Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations meant to me. This led me to a fascinating journey inwards, almost like meditation and I felt blessed at the end of it. Let me share the quintessence of what I understood.


Life is a gift from the divine and we have come here to achieve something in our lives. It is up to us to find our true calling and it is our duty to make a difference where it is required.

That - this divine force is always by our side and we are blessed and taken care of. In fact, I am told that all our needs have been taken care of, some even before we have realized them as our need.

That – we are solely responsible and have that infinite power to write our own destiny.

That – festivals are an occasion to express our undying gratitude for all blessings in our life and also an occasion to celebrate life itself.

At the end of this, I was in total awe, experienced complete devotion and absolute surrender and bliss.

We bow down at the divine feet of Lord Ganesha and seek His Grace in all aspects of our life.

May each one of you have a great festival ahead. Let us all thank Lord Ganesha for all the blessings he has bestowed on us and our family members.

That Unseen Power

Every year, 13th May is a special day for all Art of Living devotees. This day happens to be the birthday of Sri Sri Ravishankar, known and accepted as "Guruji" by millions of his followers. On this day devotees hold special sudarshan kriya sessions and satsangs and yesterday was no different. This day 13th May 2008 turned out to be very special for me. Kriya at the crack of dawn was mind blowing, but more importantly this day demonstrated forcefully the undisputed presence and power of divine grace.

We, Indians, generally believe in divine grace or will of god or a supreme unseen force that guides our destinies. This faith is so complete and unconditional that it baffles many a foreigner and it also invites ridicule from many of our so-called "educated" and "modern" Indians. This behaviour is also very unique to us - beyond a point we surrender to this divine force and leave it at that.

Let me share what happened to me yesterday. I boarded the local train at Churchgate to go home. As is the normal practice, I kept my bag on the luggage rack and settled down to the forty-five minute journey to Andheri. As things would have it, a momentary lapse of attention and I got off at Andheri forgetting my bag on the luggage rack. I realised as I was walking on the platform, and, rushed back to the compartment to retrieve my bag. To my horror the bag was missing. Some eagle eyed light-footed blighter made of with my bag.

I was devastated. The bag contained our passports and we were scheduled to fly to London in four days time. It took me a while to come to terms with what had happened. My wife joined me at the railway station. Subsequent procedures of filing police complaints and getting their FIR took the next one-hour.

On the drive back home, I realised that I was not cursing my carelessness but was quite cool and very much in the present moment. My only prayer was that I should be getting back my passports and just left the whole thing to that "unseen power".

On reaching home, I spoke to the travel agent, the passport agent, some acquaintance in the police, a few close friends......and to my surprise every one advised me to pray, saying, "Only God can save you". It struck me that prayer and surrender is so natural to us that in times of crisis this acts as a major stress buster and helps you to focus on other things.

To cut things short, the eagle eyed fleet footed blighter could find only a cell phone of interest and he dumped the bag on the Vile Parle station where it lay unattended for about two hours before the police constable on duty took it in custody. Before midnight we got the bag and passports back.

I just want to highlight our belief in prayers and when things are beyond our control a sense of surrender. I also experienced first hand the presence of such a power. I believe that it was also divine grace that saw me through this short drama without any damage. Contemplating on the events that unfolded, it became very apparent that this was no ordinary co-incidence. It was that supreme unseen power at work.

I am blessed for I believe, I know and I have experienced. It does not matter if others would choose to call it mere co-incidence.