Festive edit 2: Dusshera..
Ya dil ki suno, duniya walon, ya mujh ko abhi chup rehne do…
He had hoped this year would be different, given the pandemic. But there seemed to be getting away from pomp and show. The shoshaa and brouhaha would be muted, but it would be there.
What a headache it would be, and not just metaphorically. Those days were always difficult and even the double dosage of painkillers seemed inadequate
There was no getting away though, from all of it. He had to be at the centre of everything; it was what tradition demanded, and he knew he had to do whatever was needed.
Perhaps that was the way it was ordained, he would think to himself, as he accepted the festival and played the role that society expected him to. At least in the early few years Now, he was past wondering if this was tokenism, an expression of devoutness, or commercialisation, or all of it ..
The triumph of good over evil was what everyone looked forward to celebrating. The arrows were unleashed, the effigies burnt, crowds cheered. Evil and darkness were laid to rest year after year.
Why then , did the evil rise again? What gave it the power to resurrect itself year after year?
Maybe there was something more to it? Why did they insist on doing it this way? To label, judge and decide with prejudice?To see the obvious, hear the crackers burst , yet be blind and deaf to the evil that could lurk in everyone’s hearts?
Why were they oblivious to the fact both good and evil both were internal? Attacking the external evil and trying to eliminate it without attending to the internal one was like a quick fix; no wonder it didnt last.
Mere symbolism without an in depth examination of the malaise were part of the reason for todays troubles, he had realized. But who would listen to an old man like him??
The festival seemed to have been a part of tradition for as long as he could remember; but this year was different. Even he had never seen circumstances such as these before. The lockdown, the pandemic, the uncertainty had affected the entire planet. He would have expected humanity to introspect, cherish the lives they had, and tried to recognize the goodness that everyone had deep inside. The goodness that would keep the wheels turning and the fires burning.
With the onset of the festival season, he hoped they would think about this theme of goodness and evil , introspect about these festivals and how they came to symbolize what they did.
He had begun to do so many years back…
He had found the courage to look within; beyond the labels that everyone gave him. He had realized that, like everyone else, he too had both sides of the coin in him; the good and the evil.
Tentatively he had begun to focus of the goodness, nurture it, and began to treasure it; even though he kept it buried deep inside him. After all, he was expected to be tough and displaying softness wouldnt go well with his profile.
Besides, no one would really get it. The truth was that he was convinced that the people simply didnt have it in themselves to recognize the goodness anymore. They were happier seeing what was easiest, what came to them the fastest. And that was usually the bad and the evil.
The intolerance, hatred and arrogance that he was seeing was proof of this. Not just targeted at nature, wildlife, environment, they even their own brethren and fellow human beings ever so frequently. In the winters even the mighty sun, revered, present for millenia before him, was obsurced as a result of their actions.
He was suddenly weary.
Scared he was, not just of the virus, but also what humankind had shown it was possible of.
He sighed. Age was catching up with him. He must get on, get going. These days too would pass and the headache would eventually subside.
But right now, he needed to step up on those neck exercises. The last thing he needed was the radiating pain along with a splitting headache. The headgear they taped meticulously to his scalp, with the asymmetry of heads was what made him stand out. Of course, it was also responsible for his having to tilt his head slightly to balance it, resulting in his neck muscles being strained. But it was part of his image, the persona of the bad which people focused on, to make themselves believe they were removed from it. The glue from the large moustache they pasted on his face to make him look angry and evil gave him an allergy every year; but how else would he appear evil? After all, the world judged only on the external; on their perception of how things should be
He knew it was a matter of days, and then they would leave him to recover in peace for a year. A year which he now spent looking inwards and becoming self aware; nurturing the parts of himself that he believed were good; making peace with those that werent.
Yet, he would also continue to hope, that when the months before Dusshera came again, and he was needed to be destroyed, for people to believe that good would triumph; maybe, a few of them would achieve the real triumph to controlling the devil and the bad within, of mastering control over their own inner evil and good