Diwali, or Deepavali, is the festival of lights. It is also the festival of wealth. Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth is worshiped on Diwali. Among Bengalis, Mother Kali is worshiped during Diwali. The tradition is attributed to a number of occasions. Continue reading “Diwali Greetings”
Greetings on Ganesh Chatruthi.
May Vigneshwara (the remover of obstacles), Ekadanta (the One with the one Tusk), Mahakaya (One with the Huge Body), etc., remove the obstacles to your ventures. I am sure that he will remove the writer’s block that I have. I have made the appropriate invocations to him. Here’s a wonderful prayer to Nadapratithishta, the One who Appreciates and Loves Music.
Below the fold you will find another pretty good song to Ganapati and a list of his 108 names.
Continue reading “Happy Ganesh Chaturthi”
Shubho Noboborsho!
Dear blog visitors:
Happy Diwali, Happy Deepavali, Happy Lakshmi Puja, Happy Kali Puja, and Happy Bhai Duj.
Since Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth and prosperity, Diwali is really what the stock market needs. 🙂
Here are stories about Bhai Duj (or Bhai Dooj) below the fold. And below that, the details of the Five Days of Diwali.
Continue reading “Happy Diwali”
This morning I went to say farewell to Devi Durga at the Durgamahotsav close to where I live. I took the picture of the protima above. The traditional belief among Bengalis is that Ma Durga along with her children — Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesh and Kartik — comes to visit her parental home for 10 days. Today is the 10th day, Vijay Dashmi, when she goes back to her in-laws. People then visit each other and wish “Shubho Bijoya” after she leaves.
Durga will be back next year, of course. But Durga is just one manifestation of Shakti, the consort of Shiva. Shakti will be back as “Ma Kali” in about three weeks. Kali puja occurs during Diwali. Diwali is not a big deal for Bengalis but Kali puja is.
So here’s wishing you all a Shubho Bijoya.
I missed posting on Ganesh Chaturthi this time. I was in Mumbai last Monday. Tuesday evening was when I foolishly decided to make my way to Pune from Mumbai. As a matter of practical importance, I made the proper offerings to Ganesh, the Remover of Obstacles, before I embarked on my journey. After all, Mr Ganesh was around in the vicinity seeing as it was his time for his annual visit. So what happened? Well, I’ll tell you. Shri Ganesh failed miserably in removing obstacles from my path.
{Image above stolen from some website.}
Here’s what happened. It took about 2:30 hours to get from Mumbai to the outskirts of Pune (around 150 kms) and then it took 4 hours — I kid you not — to travel the last 24 kms to my place! What happened was that there was an amazing rain storm around 5 PM in Pune which dumped gazillion amounts of water onto the Pune streets which resulted in flooding. Traffic was backed up for miles. It was a disaster.
Ganesh, as the remover of obstacles should be fired if this is what removing obstacles amounts to. Saying that his performance is below par does not even come close to it. Anyway, I am not one to hold grudges. All is forgiven. Mr Ganesh can have a nice visit but I would be very careful to do the job of removing obstacles properly the next time if I were him. It’s a matter of reputation, you know. Once your reputation is shot, it is very difficult to recover.
OK, here’s one picture of Ganesh dancing to some cool tune. Enjoy.
Have a happy Ganesh Utsav.
Previous Ganesh posts: Happy Ganesh Chaturthi 2007, and 2006.
Deepavali Greetings! May Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, be a welcome visitor to your home and workplace.
[The WordPress software is putting a “Japonophile” watermark on the pictures. I will have to figure out how to disable that one.]
Durga Puja Greetings
For Bengalis, this is the biggest festival of the year. Today, the last day of the five-day event, is called “Bijoya Dashimi.” Mother Durga, who had come with her children (Saraswati, Lakshmi, Ganesh, and Kartik) to visit her parents, departs today. For five days her idols had been worshiped and today the idols will be given back to the earth from which they were made.
Continue reading “Durga Puja”
Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw 