My Views For Diwali !

Diwali - a festival of lights. Every Hindu who lives anywhere in the world, enjoys it too much. People like me hang around for this Festival for an entire year. We enjoy this festival too much, clean our habitations, our surroundings, and meet our friends, neighbors and even enemies. It is the festival which unites us with our people, but in this article I want to share something which is hurting me for a long time. I want to share those things which I do not like these days, things which people reveal or share when any Hindu festival arrive, due to an agenda.

For the last few days, I am watching news/ads/reports on internet, newspapers and television which are screaming that don’t burn crackers, they will harm our nature our climate etc. etc. and they also give unnecessary and wrong data that Diwali festival causes maximum pollution than any other Festival in the world. They say carbon dioxide emission is increased by this festival and it must not be celebrated by Indians. They say Mother Nature is disturbed by this festival and Indian people cause a huge amount of pollution and they should not celebrate this festival by any means.

Why those so called “Nature-Lovers” don’t protest during any Muslim festival when a number of innocent cattle and animals are slaughtered? Why they don’t protest against those nations who burn a huge number of fireworks at New Year eve, why they don’t say anything at that time? But before any Hindu festival they start protesting, waterless Holi, Rakhi less Rakhi, cracker less Diwali etc.

These so called lovers don’t protest when a number of people buy cars, and emit huge amounts of greenhouse gases and CFC's. They don’t realize that a car emits more CFC's in a year than a festival, where people burn crackers only for four hours at maximum. If these people love nature, so much, why they don’t stop purchasing cars.

I respect nature, so much, but I don’t think a festival could harm our nature, this much. I believe in philosophies that if you do something against nature, try to return in bigger amount. Plant more trees so that greenhouse gases could be limited. Stop setting an agenda against Hindu festival, we love our nature more than foreign countries, we worship it and we realize that no one has any right to spoil it. We treat nature as our mother, from our heart not for an agenda.
Anyway, I am going to celebrate Diwali to the fullest and I will plant trees on the next day too, I suggest you to celebrate it the way you want. May this Diwali bring you a lot of happiness and prosperity!

A TALE OF BAIJNATH!

Its Dussehra, on this day Lord Rama defeated King of Lanka Ravana. It’s a day of victory of truth/good over evil. This day is very auspicious in our nation and it is also a countdown for biggest festival of Hindus, “Diwali”. But on this blog I am not going to talk about “Dussehra”, I am going to tell you why in Baijnath – my village we don’t celebrate “Dussehra”.

Religious belief keeps the people of Baijnath from celebrating Dussehra. At Baijnath, a town of Kangra district located about 60 Km from District Headquarter Dharamshala, people do not burn the effigy of Ravana.

According to the Purana, “This is the place where Ravana worshipped Shiva as a sincere devotee and burning his effigy would bring bad luck for the people of this area,” Ravana worshipped Lord Shiva here and he is considered great a great devotee in Baijnath and burning the effigy of such a great devotee was not right. Legend has it that during the Treta Yug, Ravana worshipped Lord Shiva on Kailash and offered his 10 heads in a Havan Kund.

Lord Shiva was touched by this deed and agreed to accompany him to Lanka. Shiva took the shape of “ling” and asked Ravana not to place it on the ground on his way. However, when Ravana reached Baijnath, he felt the need to answer nature’s call (toilet). On seeing the shepherd, Ravana handed over the “ling” to him. The shepherd, on finding the “ling” very heavy, put it on the ground and it got installed there.

Some decades ago few people tried to burn the effigy of Ravana on Dussehra, up to next Dussehra they faced an enormous financial loss or they went seriously ill. You can connect that with the wrath of Lord Shiva. There is no shop of goldsmith in our area because of the same religious belief. We have heard from our ancestors that Lord Shiva hates gold and Ravana's Lanka was made of gold, which reflects a disagreement between the lord and the devotee. You can’t open a jewellery shop in this town, those who opened it, got burned.

Anyway we love Lord Shiva too much and we have no problem with not celebrating the Dussehra here. It’s a place of Mahadev and every inch of this holy town is filled with chants of “Harr Harr Mahadev”. So while Ramleela is enacted on stages across the country and effigies of Ravana and his brothers are also made, this town keeps away from it.