My family, Winky, Paul and Sheeba, joins me in conveying our greetings and best wishes to you all on the sacred and solemn occasion of Bandi Chhor Divas and Diwali. It is a time to relax, rejoice, celebrate and reiterate our commitments to healthy, honest and happy living within our communities in general and our extended families and friendship circles at large.
Since it has become a global festival, it has also come to remind the world that, in the wake of growing conflicts, it is time to seek “Sarbat da Bhalla,” the wellness of mankind, as envisaged in the Sikh scriptures.
This festival of lights sets in motion festivities that continue for months to follow. It is the time when the Almighty smiles on Mother Earth and paints the landscape orange and yellow.
Sweetness fills the nostrils as Brassica campestris (Sarson), with its deep yellow flowers, dots the fields, and trees laden with Kinnows wrap the landscape in orange color. As sugarcane gets ready for harvesting, roadsides are packed with indigenous “gur-making” ancillaries.
Advertisement
Open fields in villages become playgrounds and venues for rural sports festivals, and those waiting to tie the nuptial knot have their wishes and desires fulfilled. This is just the gist of the festivities that come with this sacred and solemn occasion.
Lucky are those who can pay their obeisance at the sanctum sanctorum, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, where lights from candles and lamps make a picturesque scene with their reflections in the sacred waters of the “Sarovar.” A display of fireworks adds to the festivities.
It is also time for introspection. How has our year been since our celebrations last year? Did we stay happy, relaxed, healthy and honest, and committed to the promises we made to ourselves last year?
We must be honest with our own report cards! Did we really try to be good human beings? Did we try to control our greed, anger, pride and falsehood?
If not, let us do it this time. Let us make this world a better and more peaceful place with small sacrifices, by taking to niceties and saying goodbye to those “irritating” habits that are totally avoidable, as the pleasures derived from them are short-lived and counterproductive in the long run.
We all would be doing a great service to ourselves by opting out of this maddening “consumerism” run and looking back at how and why our parents and grandparents lived lives free from conflicts, tensions, greed and pretensions. They used to laugh their hearts out.
The festival gives its message loud and clear. We should learn to be what we are and not ape others to become what we are not. Learning to live within our means will be so much more fulfilling than living under constant fear of hulks breathing down our necks to extract installments on unwarranted debts. Inculcate values in our children and keep them away from social evils like drugs, domestic violence and corruption. Make them responsible and law-abiding citizens so that they contribute their mite to peaceful coexistence and universal brotherhood.
Let not the bad and the worse devour our progeny. Instead, secure the future of your children by becoming role models for them.
Celebrate this great festival by liberating ourselves from the evils that have been wreaking havoc not only on our lives but also on those of coming generations.
Sri Guru Hargobind Singh freed 52 kings from the shackles of the Mughal prisons in Gwalior. His message was loud and clear. Live your lives the way our Gurus, Saints, Munis and Deities want us to: divorce anger, hate, lust and greed, and make truth, love and universal brotherhood our life partners.
Happy Bandi Chhor Divas and Diwali! May this occasion guide you out of darkness into a world of bright and cheerful living.
Be shining stars for others to emulate.
