Festivals - Spirits or Spiritual?

Have been meaning to post on this topic for quite some time.

Basically, the point I want to examine here is - Are religious festivals about festivities or about the religious activities like praying? In other words, is Christmas about parties and gifts and Christmas trees, or is it about Christ and hence a time to remember the God and pray to him? Is Diwali about bursting crackers and eating sweets or is it about remembering Lord Rama and his triumph over evil and praying to him? Is Id about Seviyan or about Allah? The list goes on...

Most of the holidays, all over the world, are woven around religion. However, in today's world, they have lost their religious significance to most of us. For us, festivals mean time to celebrate and enjoy; or if nothing else, relax as it is a holiday. The religious part is just an excuse to have a break, have fun. Is that right?

Mousetrapped

I am mousetrapped.

Agatha Christie's Mousetrap is the world's longest running play, playing in London West End for last 55 years. Quite strange for a murder mystery, you would have thought that by now, the audience would have cracked the whodunit.

So here I am UK. Being a major Agatha Christie fan and a fan of live theater, I had to see this. So I dragged my lovely wife along to the matinée show as an anniversary treat [yes, that's my idea of romance :-) ]. I was expecting the theater to be empty and the performance to be just satisfactory, obviously expecting that the great actors would have moved on to the latest commercial successes and taken the audience along with them. To our pleasant surprise, here we were, watching the 22659th show of a play (see the photograph) and there still was a large enough audience. A further pleasant surprise was that we had bought the tickets for the upper circle, but the usher was chivalrous to my dear wife and found us a couple of seats in the front stalls. Too good.

But forget all that preamble. To have seen Mousetrap is an experience in itself. This is not a review of the play, for what can I say that has not been written already a thousand times. This is about my experience. First, for all those people who are not into live theater, get into it. The kind of involvement with the performance, the kind of connect of the cast with the audience that is achieved here is unparalleled.

So here we are, making small talk and waiting for the play to begin when suddenly, the whole theater goes dark. A lone voice on radio gives us a news that a murder has happened and the suspect has been seen wearing a gray overcoat, a dark scarf and a felt hat. One by one, the characters of the play keep on appearing, each wearing similar clothing. The plot unfolds gradually, and at every step, your mind is torn between following the clues/ red herrings dropped in the classical Agatha Christie style and observing the wonderful acting and expressions of the actors. Guessing the whodunit should not be too difficult for Christie die-hards, keeping yourself uninvolved and hence not falling for the red herrings will certainly be much more difficult.

I cannot tell you the story or the ending. According to tradition, during the final bows, the cast announces to the audience, "Having watched this, you are our partners in crime. So do not reveal the ending". Those of you lucky enough to be in London or near-abouts, do not miss this. Do not be bothered if you don't like murders or murder mysteries, Agatha Christie's were "crime-less murders", as a friend puts it, meaning that there is no violence or unpleasantness in the story.

Meanwhile, I am enjoying my status as being a "partner in crime".

Lyrics from Bharat Ek Khoj

सृष्टी से पहले सत नहीं था, असत भी नहीं
अंतरिक्ष भी नहीं आकाश भी नहीं था
छिपा था क्या कहाँ किसने ढँका था
उस पल तो अगम अटल जल भी कहाँ था

सृष्टी का कौन है कर्ता
कर्ता है वा अकर्ता
ऊंचे आकाश में रहता
सदा अध्यक्ष बना रहता
वही सचमुच में जानता या नहीं भी जानता
है किसी को नहीं पता, नहीं पता, नहीं है पता........

-----------------------------------------------------

वो था हिरण्यगर्भ सृष्टी से पहले विद्यमान
वो ही तो सारे भूत जात का स्वामी महान
जो है अस्तित्वमान धरती आसमान धारण कर
ऐसे किस देवता की उपासना करें हम अवि देकर

जिस के बल पर तेजोमय है अम्बर
पृथ्वी हरी भरी स्थापित स्थिर
स्वर्ग और सूरज भी स्थिर
ऐसे किस देवता की उपासना करें हम अवि देकर

गर्भ में अपने अग्नि धारण कर पैदा कर
व्याप था जल इधर उधर नीचे ऊपर
जगा चुके वो का एकमेव प्राण बनकर
ऐसे किस देवता की उपासना करें हम अवि देकर

ॐ सृष्टी निर्माता स्वर्ग रचयिता पूर्वज रक्षा कर
सत्य धर्म पालक अतुल जल नियामक रक्षा कर
फैली हैं दिशाएं बाहू जैसी उसकी सब में सब पर
ऐसे ही देवता की उपासना करें हम अवि देकर

Easter

Happy Easter to everyone.

I received a church pamphlet a couple of days ago which asked a very good question - what is the significance of easter beyond the easter eggs and a good long weekend?

Of course, the pamphlet was to goad people to attend church on Easter, but that aside, it put me to thinking. Two thoughts. First - Most of our festivals today have lost their religious and spiritual significance and are reduced to being shopping extravaganza breaks from work; and as far as I know, this is common across religions and countries. This post is not about this. I'll do another post in a couple of days on this topic. Thought No. 2 came from a statement made in the church pamphlet - The true message of Easter is that by being reborn, Christ has shown us the way to conquer death.

What a beautiful thought! I won't go into the details of Christ or Christianity here, because I am neither a Christian nor a scholar on Christianity, my whole take on Christ being a tremendous amount of respect for him. But what a beautiful thought! Easter is the celebration of the spiritual life being longer, stronger and everlasting, if you have lived that way. Don't even go on the religious path. By spiritual, I mean, what you stand for; the essence of your life is your spirit.

If the essence of your life is great, the death of the physical body is just another event. If the essence of your life is telling people to love their brothers and asking them to be good to each other, your spirit will continue to live. If the essence of your life is to guide people on a way of peace and salvation, you will live on. Who in the world today is more alive than Christ?

It does not matter which religion you belong to or whether you are an agnostic or an atheist. This is not about traditional religion, this is about how to live. Christ or Buddha or Krishna or Mohammad or Guru Nanak are as alive today as they were when they were physically here; perhaps more so as they now live in billions of people around the world.

So Easter, my friends, is a celebration for everyone as the celebration of the conquest of life over death. So have a nice time, enjoy, and remember that the way to conquer death is not by living forever but by living "good".