Letters to The EDITOR: Dazzling Durga Puja celebrations in India

Dazzling Durga Puja celebrations in India

India is a land of holy places, holy rivers, and prominent religious festivals. Almost every aspect of life is infused with sacred gestures, rites, and meaning. The importance of Hinduism as India’s most dominant religion extends far beyond the private sphere into the public realm. Every year, hundreds of religious festivals and pilgrimages are celebrated across this vast and diverse country, and witnessing or participating in one or several of them is a significant cultural or spiritual experience for foreign visitors. Among India’s most colourful and lively festivals are Navratri (the Festival of Nine Nights) and Durga Puja, one of the most popular versions of this festival celebrated in Eastern India, especially in the city of Kolkata (Calcutta) in the state of West Bengal. For five days each year, the city takes on a festive atmosphere. It comes to a complete standstill when temporary temples spring up all over the city to honour the Hindu goddess Durga . Hundreds of thousands of worshippers from Kolkata and other parts of India visit these temples to pay tribute.

Navratri is a celebration of the victory of good over evil, with several variations of the tradition throughout India. Durga Puja celebrates explicitly the triumph of the goddess Durga over the bull demon Mahishasura. According to legend, Durga was summoned by the gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva to defeat the demon who had set out to conquer the world. Navratri commemorates the nine days and nights of the struggle between good and evil. Still, Durga Puja is celebrated only for the last five days. The festival is a special occasion for Bengali families to come together from all over the country and celebrate with their relatives and communities.

The festival is a special occasion for Bengali families to come together from all over the country and celebrate with their relatives and communities. At the centre of the Durga Puja celebration is the “pandal,” a temporary pavilion and place of worship where ceremonies and rituals occur. The city issues over a thousand permits for pandals in public spaces annually. On the fifth day of Durga Puja, communities gather for a last religious ceremony before the idols of Durga are paraded through the streets and then transported to the Hooghly River for immersion. This symbolizes the end of Durga’s five-day sojourn on earth, after which she returns to her heavenly abode. Traffic to the riverbank comes to a standstill that night as hundreds of hired trucks transport the idols of the displays to the river, together with dozens of revelers. As the crowd watches on, often accompanied by musicians, the clay idols of Durga and the other gods are carefully unloaded and carried down to the river, where they are gently lowered into the water. Then, the idols are picked up by the current and slowly swept downstream. Over the next few days, all the ‘pandals’ in the city are dismantled, only to be reborn in a new shape and with new glamour the following year.

Rituparna Devi

Gauhati University

Time to use green crackers

Festival season is around, and firecrackers are back in the limelight. Diwali has, however, been reduced to a festival of sound due to the mindless bursting of conventional firecrackers. In October 2018, the apex court gave the green signal for the production of eco-friendly, green crackers as substitutes for traditional crackers. The green crackers reduce shell size, don’t use ash, and contain dust suppressants to cut down particulate matter (PM) emissions. Down the line, scientists of the famed Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), in collaboration with the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), did extensive research to come up with ways and means of manufacturing green crackers.

Worker-representatives from Sivakasi, the cracker hub of India, were sent to CSIR-NEERI to be trained in the manufacture of the green crackers. But not all cracker manufacturing industries have the wherewithal to understand the making of green crackers on a large scale. The green crackers are expected to reduce the PM level by 30 percent. Reducing sound emission to 35 decibels is the norm. They mainly contain potassium nitrate, and a minimum of aluminium and barium are used, and since barium nitrate is the cause of air and noise pollution, there is a drastic reduction in pollution. But again, everything boils down to implementation. It is imperative for the manufacturing units to impart training to the workers to help them make ends meet.

Dr Ganapathi Bhat

Akola

Will the Proteas break the jinx?

After starting its ODI World Cup 2023 campaign on a high note with two out of two wins, South Africa lost to minnows Netherlands in a humiliating manner. Men in Orange have truly delivered peels of afflictions on the Proteas. Perhaps the psychological bug of losing to the Netherlands in the T20 World Cup last year, which saw South Africa go tumbling out of the tournament, must have weighed heavily in the minds of the players, though much as they would have wished to forget that agonizing loss at Adelaide. Perhaps no other sporting nation in the world than South Africa can explain how cruel sports can be at times. South Africa have always fielded world-beaters at their disposal, and the game’s pundits hailing them as favourites to win ICC world cup tournaments has been a tradition. Yet, even after eight ODI World Cup appearances, the failure of the Proteas to win the cup might well be called the Bermuda Triangle of world cricket. Can the Proteas end the jinx, at least this year?

Ranganathan Sivakumar

Chennai

SC is right in saying no to same-sex marriages

The Supreme Court in India is right in not allowing same-sex marriages to take place. Allowing gay or same-sex marriage as a constitutional right would be a mistake. Since it has been good to improve civil rights for women and minorities, some think it would be a noble thing to also grant same-sex marriage as a civil right. Marriage, being sanctioned by God, however, has a theological element that should not be abridged by the government.

According to the Catholic Church, sexual intimacy between a man and a woman is the normal method of male and female bonding (emotionally and physically) because it corresponds to the design of our bodies and because it is the normal means by which offspring are created. If God had intended the human race to be fulfilled with both heterosexual and homosexual marriages, He would have designed our bodies to allow reproduction through both means and made both means of sexual intercourse healthy and natural.

Homosexual anal intercourse carries a high risk of disease, which is recognized in the Holy Scriptures, where gay men are said to receive in their bodies the due penalty for their sins. The Holy Bible clearly tells us in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 6, Verses 9 and 10: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” God will not honour a sinful marriage between two homosexuals or lesbians.

The book of Leviticus, Chapter 18, Verse 22, also tells us, “Do not practice homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman. It is a detestable sin.” Again, in Leviticus, Chapter 20, Verse 13, we read, “If a man practices homosexuality by having sex with another man as with a woman, both men have committed a detestable act. They must both be put to death, for they are guilty of capital offence.” Remember, God destroyed the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis, Chapter 19) because the men in those cities were filled with lust and were gays (homosexuals). Homosexuality is rejected in a number of places in the Qur’an too, where it says, “It is just not allowed; it is haram”. The Qur’an also mentions sex between men several times, almost all of them in the context of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Jubel D’Cruz,

Dombivili, Mumbai