ELEPHANT HEADED GOD GANESHA

GANESH CHATHURTHI

Namaste !

Here I am trying to express myself and reach out to the dear ones especially those who are considered as long lost !

Lets start with a story.

Any idea why Vinayak Chathurthi is celebrated by Hindus?

I bet most Hindus would shake their heads.

One day Vinayak alias (No, not Elias, More about him later) Ganapathi (Elephant God of Hindu Mythology) was sitting with his two wives under a tree in a moon lit night. (Yes Hindus can have two wives. Is a Hindu then a 50% Muslim !?). The handsome full moon prince with all glory and charm passed by with his thousands of admiring beauties (stars).

Now Vinayak is not exactly a figure of beauty for a few (Even though many feel amused and some females even feel divine motherhood thinking of him as a baby !) and Moon was one of them. The elephant head, the fat body and the round stomach (may be because he takes square meals !) etc are not exactly in the lines of a Hrithwik Roshan (just citing a contemporary example) or a Sylvester Stallone with six pack abs. On the other hand, the moon is regarded as one of the handsomest princes in Hindu mythology who had innumerable admirers alias stars.

So the moon spotted Ganapati and just could not help laughing. This laugh probably meant two things

1). Hey ugly looking fat guy. Just look at my beauty and be envious !

2). If those two ladies just care to look at me then they would also join my admirers !

Ganapati got angry and cursed him.

" You are proud of your beauty. Let that vanish !"

The moon immediately lost the brightness and suddenly became all dark !

His admirers found the next brightest star (may be Venus) and started admiring him instead of the moon who has now become a black hole !

The moon was totally devastated. He became jealous of the Venus, who was nowhere near his own brightness in hey days. Everyone despised the moon. None bothered about him let alone admire his beauty.

He prayed to Ganapati for forgiveness. Ganapati modified the curse (Just like the Babus modify the circulars !) and said. "You were proud of your beauty, cause pain to others and deserved the punishment. Now as per your prayer, you can have your full glory on one day (full moon) where you would feel proud which would lead to your gradual downfall to a total black out on another day. There you would repent and gradually regain the glory. This cycle would repeat until your vision is balanced". So we have the moon of our times with ups and downs!

Now the moral of the story:

Do not ridicule someone by considering him as lower than yourself. If you do so you would have to go through ups and downs in your own life.

Now discrimination or degradation of another one can be on various criteria in real life. For example...

1). A movie star (Like Sharukh Khan) ridiculing a lesser mortal (like Sunil Gavaskar !) fully knowing that Gavaskar cannot buy Kolkata Knight Riders Cricket Club ! You know what is happening to both thereafter. while Gavaskar is on a steady course, Mr. Khan had the latest insult from US Immigration not to forget his cricket club's ignominious fall of shame in Indian Premier League cricket Tournament!!

2). A very strong man (Like Mike Tyson... Hey Mike this is just an example.. do not get worked up... I cannot stand even a hand shake from you even now when you are regarded as well past glory. But I am still pained that a champion like you fell into the wrong hands and wasted what would have been a historic life... You should have become a gentle giant. And if I were there then, I could have guided you to be one.. Anyway.. I was born here and got stuck here... thanks to Elias and everyone else including myself !) bullying weak males. But why go upto Tyson? We have many bullies right under our noses waiting to land a punch !

3). A wealthy man lampooning a poor man by showing off his Lamborghini. A practical example may be... OK..OK ... we have several ! And my son (also named Winayak) is on the receiving end...dragging me too into that corner!). No personal defamation intended but the name of Vijay Mallya come to the mind now and then the Ambanis and the Sheikhs…..with their fleet of super luxury cars including a full silver Merc!.. Just examples…only. Pls bear with me if someone feels offended. My sincere apologies…Only known names can be cited as examples and that is a limitation of language. By the way Sachin Tendulkar also has a Ferrari, gifted and not earned for a duty waiver.. the duty of which many feel should have been paid by him rather than asking this poor nation to waive off. His state of mind was affected by this incident and that explains his momentary down fall from the top… 

Many such extrapolation can be done.  So this happens in this world even now with all our people and this was written more than 5000 years back !

So the Hindus fast on that day and do not look at the moon. The purpose ? Most Hindus do not know what they are doing! god pls do not forgive them ! OK. Well and not good ! Those who know (the Brahmins and upper castes, just citing examples again) do not share it with the other (the lower castes, or dalits) fearing that this theory of equanimity would crumble their own worlds built on exploitation, torture, fear and hatred. And the lower castes finding no progress rather than going round and round in circles of rituals jump the religion at opportunist times to escape the torture...well... that is another story...

So on the day of Ganesh Chathurthi, observe your own mind and try to remove all tendencies of discrimination. Try to see a movie star (This time let the example be Aiswarya Rai ...before marriage... and that frail looking squint eyed girl with protruding teeth and wide nose on the other hand ! Can you see both these girls with the same feeling in your mind?  Most cannot. (Including myself). So practice that for at least one day ! Most may require to practice on all days of the year ! at least try to reduce the degree of discrimination so that the lives of the less privileged becomes bearable !

Or you admire the wrestling Ambanis (Just citing examples... No personal defamation meant... Ambanis may pls excuse ... and of course keep I mean…stop fighting ... and live like Ram and Lakshman..and literally mind your own businesses ! Leave that gas to the nation and find far far more rewarding (good will, money and common good)... businesses like the Reliance Fresh and the Giant Wheels on all cities) and despise the beggar couple lovingly sharing a meal on the street?

Or a poacher takes Gun and shoot a Tiger for its skin?

Or someone admire the majesty of an elephant which creates garbage and spit at a pig which clears the garbage?

In all examples, you have the lesson. It is difficult to have this even balanced vision. But try to achieve it. Because that is the only way.

And that is the lesson of Vinayak Chathurthi !

Hope the lower castes and other religions also understand. Now does some one say our religion has better stories? You are also trying to discriminate...between teachings... unfortunately. all religions have good teachings. try to learn them rather than arguing over it.

Isn't it plain and simple to understand.

OK. Now what does a normal Hindu do on that day?

Let me guess. Depending on the amount of wealth that they have (doesn't matter black white or colour), they arrange for the most lavish Ganapati sculpture and ceremonies. The costliest priest is flown down from Tirupati (or wherever) by flight. All these while his neighbour is starving or finding difficult to buy the books for his children or pay dowry to his daughter. Do you think he has got the message? No way !

He would continue to discriminate between the poor and rich etc and the world becomes hell. Who creates hell? The discriminatory views of SOME human beings.

Look around and at your siblings.. human beings, animals, plants, insects, fishes, in short all living organisms and try to see everyone with the same eyes. God looks that way.

If God can do so can you ! Because you are a part of God.

 When everyone practices this balanced view, then this earth would become paradise.

So the choice is yours.

1). Practice discrimination and.. go to hell!

2). Or view everything as your own siblings and live in paradise!!

Time is up. Thanks for listening.

More later !

Namaste !!

VINAYAK CHATHURTHI:THE STORY

Many Hindus observe rituals on this day. They make sculpture of Ganapati, observe fast, offer prayers etc and do not look at the moon on that day causing amusement if not bewilderment on other religions. Most such Hindus do not know why they do the rituals. Does anyone want to know?

Two caveats first.

I have a tendency to try a joke occasionally (especially at someone’s expense or by pulling someone’s leg. most of my friends deserted me because of this bad habit! Like any other habit –good or bad- this tendency still remains with me unlike my lady love who deserted me to have a more conventional life).There fore I would urge you to pls try to enjoy the jokes if they fit your taste or simply ignore them and just read the story. If you think the jokes are totally inappropriate pls do tell me so that they can be omitted in future. I promise that I would be very careful not to use them at wrong places. But I being I, there can be no guarantee on this. However, I promise that there is no intention to hurt any one what so ever. Jokes are meant only to ease the grind of life. Honest. Believe me.

One more caveat:

Hindu mythology adopts the way of story telling to clarify a point or convey a message. Thus the moon is characterised as a very handsome prince obviously because it is very beautiful to look at. Similarly water (Varun - a king who can probably take many shapes for example), air (Vayu – which can move very fast), the earth (as a mother), the sun (as a ferocious king wearing glittering ornaments or so) etc are so characterised if they are part of a story or a message to be conveyed. Now that is the way the Hindu mythological stories are explained. This is the limitation of language and not actually the problem of Hindu mythology itself. So understand them that way only. Understand the message or moral of the story and leave the characters. Not the other way round. OK?

Ready?. Here is the story:

One day Vinayak alias Ganapati (Elephant God of Hindu mythology with the head of an elephant, fat body and a well round stomach.. not exactly a handsome figure like Hrithwik Roshan or Sylvester Stallone with six pack abs.. our Ganapati thus probably had six bags abs or so as critics say like what the normal Indian males, on whom my German professors used to comment "Indian wife 4 months pregnant...her Husband 6 months pregnant" !) was sitting with his two wives under a tree on a full moon day. The handsome moon prince with all his beautiful wives / admirers / girlfriends (stars) sauntered by. You can imagine a film star or politician (male or female) with all those followers. In those times the moon was always full. OK. Do not raise your eyebrows. This is just a story you know. A story to convey a certain message. Take it that way only. Just try to understand the message and leave the story alone. Or alternatively take the story and laugh at the poor Hindus (who themselves may not even know the story but still go through the motions of the rituals without knowing the purpose). The choice is yours. OK?

Now to get on with the story…

On seeing the funny figure of Vinayak, the moon burst into a laughter which probably meant….

“Hey funny (or ugly) looking guy, just look at me and see my innumerable admirers. How many you managed to get? Just two? That is a laugh indeed. And just divert their attention from me so that they would also fall in love with me leaving you all alone !”

Ganapati got angry. When he is angry then none can stop him including his father Shiva. He said.

“You are blind with pride. Pride goes before a fall. Let your beauty vanish”

The moon turned into a black hole in no time. The brightness was gone. A dark round shape remained there. The stars deserted him and restarted twinkling / dancing about / around the next brightest cosmic object (May be the Venus). Understandable, isn’t it?

The moon was devastated. He understood that without the beauty / brightness, he was nothing. No entity. None bothered to admire him. There was nothing to look at / see let alone admire, you see !

The moon repented and fell at Ganapati’s feet for forgiveness lamenting profusely.

Ganapati modified the curse (like the Govt circulars). He said;

“You have made a mistake and deserved the punishment. I cannot take back the punishment. But I grant you a concession. You can regain your full glory on one day (total brightness or full moon) where you would feel proud and lose all the brightness gradually and end up totally dark on another day. Then you might repent and regain the full glory on another day. And this cycle would continue until you regain your balanced vision”.

From there on the moon had to go through ups and downs. Brightest on one day and totally black out on another !

OK. The story has ended. Now pls leave the characters and try to understand the message.

The moral of the story:

‘Do not ridicule others or even look down upon others. If you do so you have to experience ups and downs in life’.

So that is the message. Take message and leave the story now completely.

There can be several connotations for this story.

Case 1). A handsome man / woman ridiculing a lesser one

Case 2). A wealthy man / woman showing off / lampooning lesser ones

Case 3). A strong man / woman / animal  bullying a weaker one

So on and so forth. Use your imagination to identify more examples, as many as possible.

Remember...This story was written 5000 years ago. Lets see how far this is applicable in contemporary life.

Case 1: A handsome man / woman ridiculing a lesser one:

A movie star (Lets take the example of Shah Rukh Khan- SRK in short) with so many fans ridicules an aging Cricketer (Lets take Sunil Gavaskar- SG n short- with far lesser number of fans, wealth and attraction than SRK as of now. The situation was probably vice versa / different 40 years back. SG might have done similar things then but that is not the issue here) for his adverse comment on multiple captaincy of the Kolkata Knight Riders Cricket club just before the Indian Premier League Cricket tournament in South Africa in 2009. SRK’s specific comment to SG was to buy a Cricket team before commenting on it which was obviously an insult to Gavaskar. What happened thereafter? Shah Rukh Khan had to apologise to Gavaskar. His cricket team lost most matches and SRK was seen acting a real life ‘Devdas’( a movie by him where he plays the role of a tragic hero who loses his childhood love and end up dying as a drunkard)  like character in the stadium. This time smoking like a chimpanzee… I mean Chimney instead of drinking like a fish in that film! Recently he had to face insult at the US Immigration authorities as well. And what happened to SG? Nothing particular. He goes on as he always did. Because he was lying low in this drama. Again. I am not glorifying SG or degrading SRK. This is just an example.

It could have been vice versa also so easily. This time it happened this way. That is all. This can happen to you me and him, if one has that tendency to degrade others. If you do not have that tendency, do not continue to read. This is not for you !

Case 2). A wealthy man / woman showing off / lampooning lesser ones:

No explanation needed. Everyone knows this and have ample experiences of the richer ones showing off for the lesser ones to appreciate ! When the Ambanis or Vijay Mallya or the Sheiks of Arabia keep fleets of luxury cars, normal kids admire first and then become jealous and angry ( in that order) when they realise the ground realities. Forget the lesser privileged ones, I am talking about middle class ones with reasonable self esteem - including my own son  (also named Winayak), of 11 years who is a fan of beautiful fast cars. He dared to tell me in all his innocence and that glitter in his dreaming eyes to befriend one of them and borrow their cars such as Ferrari, Porsche, Rolls Royce, Lamborghini, Mercedes and BMW one by one on Sundays for a one day drive up and down the Mumbai Poona expressway ! Kids are just that. They do not have limitations. Well and Good. Let it remain that way only ! But who makes the limitations? And at what cost to the majority? All are living in this world. I would suggest to these gentlemen with all those cars that on Sundays you offer your luxury cars to those kids who wish for it so that their little wishes are satisfied and their angelic blessings would be with you. After all what can anyone do with for example the 168 cars that Mukesh Ambani has? He needs only one at a time. Take ten. And leave the rest on a Sunday to the children. They would love you for that ! Or keep amassing the curses of the children and let the cars rust.

Or the diamonds and lifestyles of the snobbish females. Can you ladies see that poor girl next door not having enough money for food, books or dowry? On the one side we have these poor women and on the other the snobs. Get the picture? Ridicule the poor. And face the consequences. If not now in your next birth. The role might have changed by then. Who knows?

This life does not end here. If you kill a chicken and eat it today, tomorrow the chicken can take birth as you and you as chicken and the eating cycle would continue. This time vice versa. The story will not end there either. The man eats chicken eats man eats chicken cycle would continue until the chicken and the man look at each other and ask… “Brother why are we eating each other!” And then that cycle might snap and another cycle would begin. So do things very very carefully. Your current actions decide the next course of life, even after your death.

Case 3). A strong man / woman / animal  bullying a weaker one:

Examples of this are available everywhere. This tendency is to be curbed. Again a difficult option for many because there is inherent ‘pleasure’ in bullying. The ego gets wonderful satisfaction  by doing so ! Then one’s life gets into a cycle of bullying which leads to fear, anger, and all those associated side effects. In short one loses the steady life and gets into a life of ups and downs with unpredictable and sudden twists and turns. Avoid the tendency and respect the weaker ones also. If you cannot, at least leave them alone.

Positive aspects of the tendency:

In all cases, the tendency to dominate creates ill feelings on others which would in turn chase back the tormentor as well. So the dominating person might feel better than the other for a brief period, but would end up meeting even better persons where he might feel humbled. This is avoidable. The positive aspect of the tendency is that the weaker ones feels challenged to get even with the ridiculing person. As long as the competition is healthy and with mutual respect, the lives would improve for both parties. Else there would be misery for one and devilish fun for the other. Happiness is in between these two attitudes.

So coming back to the story of Vinayak and the Moon, the Hindus observe the day of Chathurthi by fasting and doing poojas, making idols of Ganapati etc. Now, the rich ones would make the most luxurious Ganapati idols and make the occasion the grandest by flying down, for example, a priest from a far off Temple, say Tirupati. The rich man feels satisfied that he has done everything that he could to please the God, as he has spent a lot of wealth to make the occasion a grand success ! All these while the next door neighbour is starving for food or clothing or what not. Has the rich man got the message of Ganesh Chathurthi? Far from it. Only his tendencies to dominate have been displayed once again for all to see and the next day onwards he would continue to do what he likes most to do… dominate the weaker ones for another year until the next Chathurthi day !

We go round and round in circles and never learn the lesson.

I hope you understand now the real reason for observing Ganesh Chathurthi day. If you do wish to do some poojas, go ahead and do them. But if you decide to just sit back and cleanse your mind of the unwanted discriminatory tendencies, all the more better. The purpose is to cleanse ones mind of degrading tendencies and have a balanced life. That way the world would become very close and the next man would not appear to be a threat but rather as another man similar to oneself going through his Karmas ( cycle of actions) which he is entitled or liable to do. Let him do that and feel at peace. Do not add his load by throwing your weight also around. The life is very short. Try to see the other as equal to you or better as yourself in another shape condition the mind to love everyone. This is the fundamental principle of life. You will find this in all religions. In Christianity, it is prescribed to love your neighbour. How many can love your neighbours? (Many may be able to love the neighbour’s wife and avoid the neighbour himself all-to-get-her!) . Many miss this concept and do what they like and end up making everyone’s life miserable.

In case you are a Hindu and has already achieved a balanced state of mind, just go ahead and look at the moon on that Day ! Nothing would happen to you. If you do not have that balanced state of mind, you would experience ups and downs in life. And that is the real message of Ganesh Chathurthi ! Got it?

Jai Ganeshji !!