Oh! What a devotion indeed!

The barbarism being increasingly witnessed during various festivals clearly prove that all talks of devotion and spirituality are nothing but a farce.

ByKajal Chatterjee

Updated 11 Nov 2021, 12:23 pm

Representational Image (PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons)
Representational Image (PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons)

 

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Do the festivals of India get conducted out of "devotion" to the Almighty or are these "holy" occasions function as a deadly instrument to display crude muscular/religious clout and influence to “show who are the boss”!

Innumerable houses/residential complexes host patients, senior citizens and infants. Yet far from displaying minimum concern to their vulnerability, microphones and drums blaring till dead of night coupled with ear-shattering crackers in the guise of "performing Chhath"! No respite in  early hours of dawn also! People admitted in hospitals also facing the same predicament with the torture increasing at cancerous proportion year after year!

All rhetoric of reducing sound air and water pollution just vanished into thin air with brutal attacks launched upon space land ponds and rivers! Apart from such barbaric exhibition of muscle; what a grave insult upon the essence and purity of the religious ritual or festival named Chhath also!

And what to say of the heart-shattering death (actually "devotee"-made death) of the little 7-year-old Malda boy Sakibul Seikh in the ambulance itself right in front of the eyes of his helpless father Sazlum Seikh as the Kolkata-bound vehicle got stranded due to a road blockade in Nadia by the Jagaddhatri Puja organisers demanding a go-ahead for traditional immersion processions! Despite pleading at the feet of the demonstrators, the Jagaddhatri "Bhakts" didn't allow the ambulance to pass with the child breathing his last without minimum treatment after three hours! Yes, "right" of traditional immersion procession of the Mother deity gets accorded higher preference over the most basic human right of the child in this "holy" "pious" - infested land!

Worship of God! Perhaps God has also escaped from the horizon by witnessing the "Devotion" of such Bhakts!

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The barbarism being increasingly witnessed during various festivals clearly prove that all talks of devotion and spirituality are nothing but a farce. Rather festivals are being cleverly exploited to display a horror show of muscular might and clout --- be it religious, racial, economic or political.

Presently Durga Puja in Bengal provides the best platform to the organizers to exhibit their economic and political clout with sky-kissing pandals with idols covered from head to toe with original golden ornaments! Unless deadly firecrackers shatter the environment three successive whole nights , celebration of Diwali holds “absolute no meaning”! Ganesh Chaturthi and Basant Panchami have been made notorious with blaring of songs in top gear! Ramnavami --- nice excuse to brandish swords and if riots occur through such instigation the better(for certain camps)! Holi --- isn’t it a brilliant excuse to molest the ladies, throw colour balloons on pedestrians or chilli-mixed coloured water through the windows of moving buses or trains! Muharram --- right from days before the festival, young men or boys are seen running with Tazias right within crowded places like markets or railway stations and if any person gets hurt thanks to their lunatic actions, he should also be ready to get struck by swords! How can Namaaz be rendered unless main thoroughfares are not completely blocked thereby throwing traffic out of gear landing innumerable innocent persons into unfathomable trouble! Can any sane person afford to believe that Ishwar or Allah would feel extremely glad in witnessing such “devotion” of the followers towards them! What an insane society we have created!

When the need of the hour remains to prohibit such display of muscle and severely punish the offenders who create mayhem, pollute the environment, contaminate the water bodies, block the roads and indulge in all possible nuisance; the lawmakers shamelessly pamper promote and encourage these religious muscle flexers to “remain in the right side” of the concerned community and boost electoral dividend with the administration turning a blind eye to such series of offence so as to dance to the whims of their political masters! Indeed what a fall of sanity, what an unconditional surrender to the religious fanatics!    

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Tags:

ritualsdiwaliJagaddhatri PujaChhath pujaimmersion processionfestivals of India

Kajal Chatterjee

Kajal Chatterjee

Special Contributor, KOLKATA, West Bengal

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