With Navaratri and Dussehra starts our Indian Season of Good Wishes. Next will come Eid Mubarak, then Happy Diwali and Business New year (or whatever it is called) then Merry Christmas. Then Happy & prosperous new Year. So many wishes for so many people. And we are then forced to reciprocate too. Sometimes it becomes a burden specially for people like us who have mobiles and also online so the wishes come to us travelling all modes of conveyance and vie with each other to test which can reach faster. Some will hang the cards on their walls at office to show how much they are loved and some will just go into the recycle bins after acknowledgement.
Why do we wish? Is it because we feel a good wish sent will come back two-fold back to us or do we really wish good for others?
Do these wishes really help?
Do not really know, do we? Life goes on with its ups and downs every year and finally ends one day.
With the end of Durga Puja, the biggest festival of Bengalis, I saw how Bengalis in Calcutta felt sad yesterday evening and I realised that if I was in Calcutta I would have felt Bad too. I know because I remember how Calcutta felt during Durga Puja Festivals. The festival mood was always throbbing. And it always made us sad when it ended after 5 days of joyous frolicking.
Thank God I am at Delhi… No chance of feeling bad now…because I did not reach the peak of pleasure so no scope for downslide now for me. So now then the question arises.. what is better?
— Feel happy now to feel bad later or never feel happy to not feel bad ever?
Indian sages have always held : Sukhe Dukhe Samakrita. The mind is pendulous – when it swings to Sukha, it has to swing back to Dukha.
Happiness, which is not to be confused with pleasure, is right at the centre.
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