I live in this beautiful SIRSA campus, located in southern Kolkata, India. SIRSA stands for Scientific and Industrial Research Scientists Apartment, true to its nature is the abode for many scientists and other employees working for CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) labs. For the decade I lived here, there were 10 Durga pujas. During my initial years of staying here, I was busy raising my child. I have never in true sense participated in Puja except for doing some puja related work or attending the puja procedures or mass lunch. This time I had the privilege of attending something I rather missed my earlier years.
I will describe the Dashami puja as it happened in the morning today. The puja is symbolically a procedural aspect of saying goodbye to the deities for this year. It is an emotional event. The stage will be empty, and we will not see the face of our beloved goddess Durga and her contour. The first step was Anjali, paying obeisance to the deities, then the next is to do puja and wear the Aparajita stem around your wrist. I am not sure about this ritual, but I believe Aparajita signifies mother earth and wearing Aparajita means loving and respecting our mother earth. For me the most important protocol of this day was immersion - a symbolic one that to. We take water in an earthen pot, put little bit of turmeric and take a mirror. From the mirror we see the whole body of deity and then we immerse the mirror into the water pot. By this, we signify we have immersed our beloved goddess into water. In the end the priest sprinkles the Holi water on the devotees. Here in Bengal, I have seen emotional goodbyes where devotees, say goodbye to Durga maa by giving her Sandesh in her mouth, wiping her face in their sarees.
Today I had the good fortune of sitting on the stage and meditate briefly. I was thinking people ask for things, what should I ask? I have everything I need. Then I realized, I probably can work on myself a little bit and meditate. First, I was thinking oh lord make my child a good person and let her grow up to be successful and get good marks. Then my mind said who defines what is good what is bad? In our own make-believe world, we have defined success and happiness with getting good grades, getting a good grade and having a comfortable life. But in true sense that can't be success. We all are so temporary on this planet; what we think how we behave or what we get in terms of earthy hardly matters to the universe. It is important to train out thoughts. Instead, I started looking inwards and was thinking what I do wrong. Though consciously, sometimes, I am rude to people - that signifies ego. Ego because I feel that I can be rude and get away with it. Rather, I take out my anger on someone else on someone. I prayed to God that please give me strength to get over that. Sometimes I scold my child because I have no patience and say hurtful words. I prayed to God that please give me patience so that I stay calm when I have the urge to shout. Then I looked inwards and saw that I often tell my mother things that I don't practice myself. I tell her to ignore what others say or think about you and celebrate your loneliness. But in practice subconsciously I am also not immune to what people think or talk about me. I prayed silently to God, so I get over this. For now, I hope my goddess will grant me this much courage, so I get over these ailments and do "bisarjan" to these bad qualities along with the deities. Today is the day for all of us to introspect look within and immerse the bad "identifiable" traits we have with good ones. Namoh Debi Durge Durgati nasini, may sense prevails on all.
