Vinayagara, Vignaharta, Vigneshwara!
इस साल क्या कोई नहीं सहारा?
Forlorn, locked in homes, we celebrate.
Deserted, fewer Pandals operate.
But Ganesh Chathurthi requires not crowds
This festival that all negativity fouls.
Defeated, ignorance, ill-will, selfishness skulk away.
On you, for the triumph of goodness, we shower praise.
Today in silos and not temples is this happening,
We need no symbols for thoughts enriching.
Families meet digitally or not.
Shops sell less, the economy falls.
Jobless more now, more homeless too
Many more victims of domestic abuse.
Health still stutters, infrastructure still moans.
And it is tough to meet education's goals.
The world almost standing still,
Locked in, but so united in will.
Masks, earlier a danger, today a safeguard,
Health earlier ignored, today the stalwart.
Never thought the day would come,
When the world would be largely one.
It has been months, lord, 152 days or so,
Many to save, there is still much to do.
The lesson learnt is humanity's core:
It is caring for others that is the stuff of lores.
Not all are an equally privileged lot.
We must share more of what we have got.
Together we rise. We have a choice:
Continue to die or adapt to thrive.
The story of your broken tusk,
Teaches us that what is needed, do we must.
Wish us all the wisdom represented by Ganapati.
Happy Ganesh Chathurthi, 2020!
- Written on 22 August 2020.
- Self-explanatory. This day is Ganesh Chathurthi!
- The painting is an old one. Was on the wall of my bedroom (I think my mother allowed me to paint every inch of that room's wall in college, because we would leave and before the next Indian Oil employee came to reside in the company quarters this would get painted over. She only had to tolerate this for a few months. I took pictures of some of the wall art and we did not develop the film for 1 year 🤣 How much more Indian Kodak family can you get? 😜😂😂😂)
I still can remember many of them and while the pictures are bad in most cases (this was salvagable), the memories of painting of smelling it on the wall, of the brush strokes as I almost thoughtlessly painted, of the the chaos of multiple ideas that was my room from scenery to what not, remains embedded deeply in my memories.)
#ganesha #ganeshchaturthi #COVID19India
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