Shubho Bijoya greetings to all. Today is what we Bengalis call Bijoy Doshumi, the final day of our most important festival, Durga Pujo or simply Pujo.
I’m in Bangalore as a guest at my friend K’s home. The above image is from a Durga puja we visited yesterday evening. It depicts Ma Durga and her four children — from left to right, her son Ganesha, her daughter Lakshmi, herself, her other daughter Saraswati, and her other son Kartik.
As a child I learned this story from my mother and grandmother. Every year Durga, who is married to Shiva, comes to visit her parental abode with her four children. Everyone celebrates her visit and she is worshiped, and on the final day of Bijoy Dashumi, she goes back.
The iconography depicts her as “Mahisasur-mardini” — the destroyer of the demon Mahisasur. There she is riding her lion, in the act of killing the evil demon as he emerges out of a buffalo. The victory of good over evil. Celebrations all around. Like this — from an event a few days ago in a puja in the Delhi area.
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When my friend K asked me yesterday if I’d like to go visit a pujo in Bangalore, I said yes. So off we went. It was as expected — lively, vibrant, crowded, commercialized, etc. Not too bad but I could have given it a miss — except that I did not want to disappoint K.
Anyway, the reason I mention this is because of a curious phenomenon which is known as the “Abilene paradox.”[1] It happens when people as a group end up doing something that no one in the group actually wants to do but because everyone mistakenly believes that that’s what the others want to do, they end up doing what no one would have preferred to do.
I agreed to go see a puja because I thought that K was keen on going; K offered to take me there because he believed that that’s what I wanted to do. When I confessed to K later that I would have preferred not to go, he said that he was not keen to go at all and that he had to cancel his badminton game. C’est la vie.
Things turn out not too good if one’s preferences are misrepresented or misinterpreted. I am reminded of the short story of “Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen” by O. Henry. Look it up if you have not read it.
So that’s it for now. Shubho Bijoya. And as always, here’s a classical piece based on Raga Durga sung by Veena Sahasrabuddhe:
NOTES:
[1] Here’s a bit from the wiki on the Abilene paradox:
On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a 50-mile trip to Abilene for dinner. The wife says, “Sounds like a great idea.” The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, “Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go.” The mother-in-law then says, “Of course I want to go. I haven’t been to Abilene in a long time.”
The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad as the drive. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted.
One of them dishonestly says, “It was a great trip, wasn’t it?” The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, “I wasn’t delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you.” The wife says, “I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that.” The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored.
The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip that none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.
Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw 