Thursday, October 9, 2008

Vijay Dashmi

Dusshera, amongst other things reminds me of washing and cleaning all home vehicles in the morning,going to Tilak Nagar ground to watch Ravan being mercilessly fire cracked through his butts and exchanging "sona" later in the evening.

I think around the time of Dusshera the festive season really sinks in. The air is crisp and getting cooler and now you are truly in midst of the prolonged festive season where you take a vacation from calorie consciousness. For every place you visit, whether friends or family, you are deluged with elaborate servings of that deadly trio of chivda,chakli,ladoo and more. Not to mention free flowing oily lunches and dinners over at the extended families.

In Nagpur, the western part of the city, there's this huge crowd that comes from all over Maharashtra and collects at, Ambedkar Stadium. You don't want to know more. Except that the "face" of the city changes quite drastically only to recover back in a few days.

There are a couple of mythologies around Vijay Dashmi. The most consensual being that Bhasmasur was finally killed on this day. Apparently this dude, Bhasmasur, had caused quite a chaos in the universe, and needed a force in form of a Goddess to destroy him. Bhasmasur was otherwise indispensable as one of the Gods from the trio of Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva, had given him a boon of immortality. That is, he cannot be destroyed by any Male.

Lol.. don't you just love these stories!!! How convenient is that? So you can't be killed by a male, fair enough, create a female and you got him. :))

Another story is that, Ram finally was able to destroy Ravan on this day in Sri Lanka after a massive battle, and news reached Ayodhya on this day. He finally arrives from that win on day of Diwali and does a victory lap, roughly after 15 days.

The victory of good over evil. The victory of truth over lies. These basic templates of Hindu Mythology have been celebrated for last 3000 years. I am not going to question or judge or analyze them . On the other hand, I am going to just feel the joy of this festival and take a spiritual journey for a day and hope that all modern day Bhasmasurs are destroyed. (Actually I am going to just go around and do my work as I ain't have no holiday today)

Happy Dusshera!

1 comment:

rathchakra said...

Happy Dussehra to you. Been in India after many many years in this season and there is magic in the air. Shopping offers, lighting, pandals, music, fireworks...all in all loving every moment of it. (The air is not so crisp and cool...but I attribute that to Bombay, Nagpur will be much different).