Entire night I was having disturbed sleep. Please do not give reasons as to why I had a disturbed sleep. Like me there are many who are either unable to sleep or having a disturbed sleep. Till the next Tuesday i.e., 17th Sep 2024, this situation persists. We are losing sleep due to few idiots.
The festival of Ganesh is the cause of lack of sleep and bad health! Though being a staunch Hindu, I could never understand as to why the fictitious birthdays of more fictitious outdated gods be celebrated. And the extent to which the over-enthusiastic, religion bitten, disguised educated young good for nothing stupid’s go is unimaginable.
These people take the huge Plaster of Paris (PoP) Ganesh idols to the nearest pond / water source to immerse. This is the way the Ganesh festival ends every year. These giant Ganesh idols are transported in big trucks, with excessively loud DJ Music, dancing, drinking liquor and fighting at midnight. What vicarious doggish pleasure do these people derive out of this entire mindless exercise remains unknown even to the Lord Ganesh Himself. The thousands of forever unemployable university graduates drink and dance –both men and women. What kind of religious freedom did our Constitution guaranteed us is a huge question.
When hundreds of Ganesh idols, one after the other, proceed for immersion in the manner described above, then sleep becomes scarce. The unsolvable environmental issues emerge due to idol immersions. I curse these festivals. Religion has gone one mad notch ahead in the minds of the people, it became a compulsive obsession. You cannot but wonder if Karl Marx is correct when he said: “Religion is the opium of the masses.” These festivals became more than opium!
If religion is a private affair, then celebrate it privately. Why midnight processions, song, dance, singing and disturbance? Let us look dispassionately at the History of Humans. In the long known human history, many gods were born & many gods have died. Old gods are dying, one in a second and new gods are born, one in a second! The life of our gods depends on our fancy! Fiction can never be the reality. Religion is the biggest fiction ever written. Today every major religion across the globe has its own Reality Show. Ganesh festival is one such religious reality show of India.
Those of you who see few videos on the social media and brand India as a secularly vibrant country are writing yet another fiction. This kind of branding is an illusion with in an illusion. I pray the Lord Ganesh that people will understand what is being written here in the right perspective. Ganesh festival is a ‘pain the neck’ festival. In the name of religion & God, it robs you of money, privacy, time and sleep!
Like the earlier gods in the human history, when will you die Ganesh Ji? On the eve of this Ganesh festival, please grant us devotees the boon of your death so that we sleep without disturbance in our short uncertain lives.
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional.
What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
I totally agree with this… Ganesha Nimarjanam has been disturbing our sleep every year during Night time