Sunday 4 March, 2007

HOLI - the festival of COLOUR DISSOLUTION!

HOLI....when colours dont matter (literally)
A hindu festival whose roots go back well (no one exactly knows how many years) but how can this ancient festival serve as an eternal moral lesson for eons to come ? lets see.....and realise!
(divided in 4 parts i.e.reason behind HOLI,COLOURED BIAS-a world view,INDIA and its BELYING situation and the HOLI(Y) solution-transcending the festical.for those who are impatient ones can jump to the last epilogue HOLI SOLUTION TRANSCENDING THE FESTIVAL! spoiler warning-reading the epilogue first might spoil the fun of the article!for serious bloggers plz slog through the entire blog! no excuses for you people! ;p)


beautiful REASONS behind celebrating HOLI
(history 1)
As the story goes its the hiranyakashipu(king of demons)'s son PRAHLAD was a devotee of vishu,which obviously his father didnt like and thus tried to kill him after
several failed attempts he ordered prahlad to sit on a pyre on the lap of his sister HOLIka(who was also demonic) who by the virtue of a special shawl would not get burnt by the fire.so prahlad went into the pyre n started praying lord vishu and magically the shawl flew off HOLIka and moved on prahlad due to which HOLIka was burnt to death but prahlad survived unharmed.te burning of HOLIka is celebrated as holi.

(history 2)
During lord krishna's life time he popularised the festival by playing pranks on the gopis.lord krishna ONCE COMPLAINED TO HER MOTHER YASODHA ABOUT THE CONTRAST BETWEEN HIS DARK COLOUR AND HIS BELOVED RADHA'S FAIRNESS.krishna's mother yasodha DECIDED TO APPLY COLOUR TO RADHA'S FACE AND DISSOLVE THE BIAS atleast momentarily .the celebration commence usually star in spring and lasts for 16 days until rangpanchami in remembrance of the divine and eternal love of radha-krishna.

(history 3)
kamadeva the god of love was destroyed by shiva as he tried to distrupt him during his penance to help parvati marry shiva.shiva opened his third eye and the gaze made kamdev's body turn into ashes.but for kamdev's wife rati (passion) sake,shiva restored him but only as a mental image, REPRESENTING THE TRUE EMOTIONAL AND MENTAL STAGE OF LOVE RATHER THAN JUST MERE PHYSICAL LOVE and holi bonfire is believed to be celebrated in commeoration of this event in history.

COLOURED BIAS-a world view
WHITE and BLACK and today even BROWN is what we people fight over....what are these ? yes skin colours...very remorseful and regretting when we think of it naa ?
since we know of history,racial segregation has been a truth which haunts us everytime in almost every era,almost in every continent.the human race is scarred with such heinous malady none more dismaying then colour and racial bias.
the europeans (including the americans as they are originally mostly europeans) who are the front runner in being racially inclined were history's first people to be prejudiced by the moors who thought europeans were incapable of abstract thinking.the europeans then prejudiced all other coloured races as inferior to theirs.some biased racial scientist even compairing africans to HALF APES !
the British Empire imported labourers to the British colonies in Africa and the Carribean. These Indian labourers were free, had more rights and had better societal functions and status than the darker-skinned Africans (who were mostly slaves), but less than the lighter-skinned European colonizers.PIGMENTOCRACY was a reality back then and is still a reality now although we might like to turn a blind eye to it and think or make belief that we are truly civilised!
from ENGLAND TO UNITED STATES TO CANADA TO RUSSIA TO SOUTH AFRICA TO INDIA TO AUTRALIA ALL HAVE HAD AND HAVE COLOUR BASED PREJUDICES AGAINST THIER OWN COUNTRYMEN AND HUMBLE VISITORS alike.

There are so many biased and baseless thoeries and arguments that the real truth dwindles in between.
"Melanin Theory" is that the levels of melanin in dark skin naturally enhance intelligence and emotional, psychic and spiritual sensitivity and physical prowess.
"White Supremacy Theory" is that all whites are more cognitive than thier coloured counter parts.
some of them even have sub theories and thus end up fighting within thier own skin colour too eg nordicism,pan europeanism,pan aryanism etc etc.
even some are laugh worthy like the theories which involve hair colour that preach blondes are dumb,redheads are fiery,brunettes are evil.

INDIA and its BELYING situation
The world has been marked with such erros through history and we dont have to look to far for examples after all NOT TOO FAR AWAY FROM OUR HOME
INDIA itself is in such a sorry state itself.
for a country which is madly in love with fair and lovely and provision for the largest market for fairness driven products from shehnaz hussain to garnier(which doesnt produce fairness cream anywhere else in the world) .(some of which are proven to be carcenogenic!!!fair n lovely itself!!!)
for a country whose film industry only has white actors prevalently successful!!!
for a country that mourns at the birth of a daughter (imagine the plight of a dark skinned daughter)!!!
for a country whose FATHER OF THE NATION was kicked out of a compartment train in south africa on racial basis.one person who fought all his life for equality and freedom.60 years on India has moved very little in terms of racial/cultural/lingual/societal/regional/coloured/religious/economic bias !!!!
its shameful for each of us that we still are so damn narrow minded that we fail to unprejudice about people form their skin colour!
India with its heritage and history can easily serve as a teacher in the respect of coloured bias only if it learns from its own mistakes and realizes them and make amends fast.( please mr.ARJUN SINGH spare us from your quota here ok !!! will you ?.QUOTA is not the way for this or to supress any other kind of bias!its just short sightedness or lets just say vote bank politics) a country where people are more tolerant to coloured people then other races perhaps as we have seen and dealt coloured people all our lives in one way or the other some of which are even our own relatives so it becomes easier for us to judge the truth behind coloured biases!so we must serve the world which we can only do if we solve our own problems or coloured bias in the Indian society!

THe HOLI(Y) SOLUTION-TRANSCENDING THE FESTIVAL
THE FESTIVAL OF HOLI WHICH TODAY IS CELEBRATED THE WORLD OVER BY HINDUS AND OTHERS THE WORLD OVER (annually in state universities of US and UK eg washington state university has more than 20000 water balloons piled up for the occasion where Indians and non Indians play enjoy alike) CAN ACTUALLY HELP US TACKLE THIS PROBLEM OF COLOURED BIAS.A DAY WHEN WE ALL COLOUR ALL OUR FRIENDS AND ENEMIES ALIKE.A DAY WHEN WE FORGET ENEMITY AND FORGE BROTHERHOOD.AN ALL ENCOMPASSING,CIRCUMFERENT,PANAROMIC,EXTENSIVE,ALL INCLUSIVE,ALL EMBRACING FESTIVAL WHICH CELEBRATES THE CONTRAST IN COLOURS RATHER THAN DISASSOCIATING IT.THIS VERY DAY CAN SERVE AS A GLOBAL REMINDER FOR EQUALITY IN PEOPLE OF ALL COLOURS,A DAY WHICH PEOPLE FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD WITHOUT THE BIAS OF COLOUR,CASTE,CREED,ECONOMICS,RACE,RELIGION,GDP ETC.A DAY WHICH WE ALL NEED TO UNDERSTAND AND EMBRACE EACH OTHER'S CULTURE AND LEARN TO LOVE DIFFERENCES IN LIFE AND PEOPLE.A DAY WHICH WE ALL NEED VERY MUCH GIVEN THE CURRENT SITUATION OF THE WORLD.A DAY WHEN WE CAN JUST HAVE SOME RED BLUE GREEN ORANGE YELLOW WHITE BLACK AND EVERY OTHER CLOUR AND HUE YOU CAN THINK OF AND SMEAR IT ON THE FACE AND BODY OF THE PERSON INFRONT OF US WITHOUT JUDGING FROM HIS SKIN COLOUR.A DAY WHEN AGGRESSION AND SEGREGATION MAKE WAY FOR INTEGRATION AND CONSOLIDATION.A DAY WHICH CAN REMIND US THAT LOVE IS MORE THAN JUST PHYSICAL AND THAT COLOUR IS NOT A COMPONENT OF ANYTHING WHICH SHOULD BE PREJUDICED UPON.A DAY WHEN EVERYONE CAN ENJOY BEING COLOURED IN WHAT EVER COLOUR HE FANCIES AND MAY BE EVEN JUDGE THAT A WORLD WITH SO MANY COLOURS IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN A BI-POLAR WORLD OF COLOURS BUT DEFINITELY NOT AS GOOD AS A WORLD WITHOUT COLOURS COZ AFTER ALL ITS HOLI-THE FESTIVAL OF COLOURS OR SHALL WE MAKE CELEBREATE IT AS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL HUMAN PARADOX EVER...THE GLOBAL CELEBRATION OF HOLI-THE FESTIVAL OF COLOUR DISSOLUTION!!!the choice is yours.make equality rule!
(have a happy n safe holi.use herbal colours but definitely use water ballons lolZzz..I am gonna be 19 soon but i still love them hehe!!)

3 comments:

Abhu said...

phew!!!! u appear to be one chalta-phirta history bk!!!! :P u google it kya???
and i totally agree with u on da racial bias. with due respect to Mr. arjun singh, he has no right to play with the future of thousands of students with his utterly worthless and pathetic proposals. and it luks like the other politicians have also gone blind and deaf to most of da pple. there eyes, heart, mouth, ears function only for the welfare of certain sections of the society.

KAMONASISH AAYUSH MAZUMDAR said...

history book aur main....(wish my history teachers cud hear this !!)i jus remember stuff which i can realte to...n other politicians rnt blind but they rnt doin nethin coz they also want votes...its quite simple....

Abhu said...

yeah...basically...they r turning a blind eye towards it:P