“Nibhi ta halchha eekaichginma,” I keep telling Ama. “It’ll soon be snuffed out!” What’s the point of lighting up a handful of diyos when the whole house is bedecked with colorful electronic lights anyway? As you might imagine, it’s with great frustration that I take part in this tedious and seemingly pointless ritual every year. [break]
In all these years not once did I stop to think that Ama might actually be enjoying the whole process: dusting off old diyos from the storeroom, arranging them in a neat circle on a nanglo, apportioning the right amount of oil, soaking the fluffy cotton wicks in it, carefully, meticulously. Lighting them up can be another part of the fun. You can do so either in a cluster (the whole nanglo glowing with diyos is quite a sight) or you can arrange the little clay pots in neat rows and light them up, welcoming Laxmi into the house a diyo at a time.
But I am only concerned about the end result. I don’t get why so much time and energy is being wasted on something that is completely unnecessary.
It is amazing to think about how result-oriented we have become. Everything has to have a purpose, an end result that justifies all our efforts. For me, most of the diyos had to burn at least for an hour to justify all our troubles.
Were he alive today, Hajurbua might have understood what his daughter was up to a little better.
PHOTOREE.COM
I still remember the elaborate arrangements of my grandfather every time we visited mamaghar in the Tarai during our winter school break. He would spend a fortune in preparations. The smell of fresh white plaster greeted us every winter. Extra hands were employed to look after our needs, everyone from doodhwala to new cooks. The store was stocked brimful.
Didn’t he need to save for hard times? I used to wonder sometimes. But not for long; I was much too young to dwell on such big questions. I now think hajurbua enjoyed the preparations that he made in eager anticipation. The end result, the smiles on our faces, were icing on the cake.
We often fail to appreciate the little joys in life, not realizing that it is in those small things that we find the true meaning to life. Such a cliché, but how very true! The end goals are just illusions, to be replaced by new ones the moment we get there. One of my good friends just built a house, with a big bank loan. As anyone with a house of their own must know, having one is a lifelong investment. Try as you might, you can never finish working on it. In a way, it is an enormous burden. But taking care of something on which you have spent a considerable amount of your time, energy and money can also be a source of tremendous satisfaction.
At an intellectual level I understand this perfectly well; at a practical level, I still struggle. Why take the hassle like my friend when you can live much more comfortably in rented apartments, hopping and skipping between different locations, for as long as you like?
Again, intellectually, I can see why this goal-oriented mindset and this tendency to shun responsibility are counterproductive. They make us callous. We no longer want to be responsible for anyone, not even our parents. We are also increasingly isolated. Social gatherings are seen as a waste of time. Most of our time is instead spent on taking extra classes, doing extra time at work, paving the money trail for a happier tomorrow that never arrives.
Back to Laxmi Puja. Amazingly, after a little effort, the diyos started catching fire. Many of them burned for a while, sputtering in intermittent night gusts. The whole house seemed to be soaking up the warm diyo glow. Every second they burned was a vindication for all the hard work that Ama put in.
Some onlookers might have been amused at the sight of half-burnt diyos lining up our veranda, right beneath the blinking electronic lights. But they had served their purpose. It was for the onlookers that we had put up the twinkly, eye-catching neon bulbs. The diyos were a family affair, lit up by the family, for the family. If the goddess of wealth was impressed, so much the better.
The writer is the op-ed editor at Republica.
biswas.baral@gmail.com
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