The Real Diwali

A young second generation Indian in the US was asked by his mother to explain the significance of “Diwali” to his younger brother, this is how he went about it…

 

“So, like this dude had, like, a big cool kingdom and people liked him. But, like, his step-mom, or something, was kind of a bitch, and she forced her husband to, like, send this cool-dude, he was Ram, to some national forest or something…. Since he was going, for like, something like more than 10 years or so…. he decided to get his wife and his bro along… you know…so that they could all chill out together. But Dude, the forest was reeeeal scary shit… really man….they had monkeys and devil s and shit like that. But this dude, Ram, kicked with darts and bows and arrows… so it was fine.

 

But then some bad gangsta boys, some jerk called Ravan, picks up his babe (Sita) and lures her away to his hood. And boy! was our man, and also his bro, Laxman, pissed… all the gods were with him… So anyways, you don’t mess with gods. So, Ram, and his bro get an army of monkeys… Dude, don’t ask me how they trained the damn monkeys… just go along with me, ok…

 

So, Ram, Lax and their monkeys whip this gangsta’s ass in his own hood…. Anyways, by this time, their time’s up in the forest… and anyways… it gets kinda boring, you know…. no TV or malls or shit like that. So, they decided to hitch a ride back home… and when the people realize that our dude, his bro and the wife are back home… they thought, well, you know, at least they deserve something nice… and they didn’t have any bars or clubs in those days… so they couldn’t take them out for a drink, so they, like, decided to smoke and shit…. and since they also had some lamps, they lit the lamps also…so it was pretty cooool… you know with all those fireworks…. Really, they even had some local band play along with the fireworks… and you know, what, dude, that was the very first, no kidding.., that was the very first music-synchronized fireworks… you know, like the 4th of July stuff, but just, more cooler and stuff, you know. And, so dude, that was how, like, this festival started.”

 

(The mother fainted.)

 

PS: I didn’t write this one, its one of the few good email forwards I have received 🙂

The Tinkle of Breaking Glass.

Life here on the very edges of death follows  a terribly clear line, it restricts itself to what is absolutely necessary, everything else is part of a dull sleep – it is our crudeness but also our salvation, If we were to make finer distinctions we would long since have gone mad, deserted or been killed.

It is like a Polar expedition- every activity is geared excessively to survival, and is automatically directed to that end. Nothing else is permissible, because it would use up energy unnecessarily. That is the only way we can save ourselves, and I often look at myself and see a stranger, when in quiet hours the puzzling reflection of earlier times places the dull outlines of my present existence outside me, like a dull mirror image; and then I am amazed at how that nameless force that we call life has adapted to all these. Everything else is in suspended animation, and life is constantly on its guard against the threat of death. It has made us into thinking animals so that we can have instinct as a weapon. It has blunted our sensitivities, so that we don’t go to pieces in the face of a terror that would demolish us if we were thinking clearly and consciously. It has awakened in us a sense of comradeship to help us escape from the abyss of isolation. It has given us the indifference of wild animals, so that in spite of everything we can draw out the positive side from every moment and store it up as a reserve against the onslaught of oblivion. And so we live out a cold hard existence of extreme superficiality, and it is only rarely that an experience sparks something off. But when it happens, a flame of terrible longing suddenly bursts through.

Those are the dangerous moments, the ones that show us that the way we have adapted is really artificial after all, that it isn’t a simple calmness, but rather a desperate struggle to attain calmness. In our way of life we are barely distinguishable from bushmen as far as the externals are concerned; but while bushmen can always be that way because that is the way they are, and they can at least develop their capacities by their own efforts; with us its exactly the other way about: our inner forces are not geared to development, but to regression. The attitude of the Bushmen is relaxed, as it should be; ours is completely tense and artificial.

And in the night you realize, when you wake out of a dream, overcome and captivated by the enchantment of visions that crowd in on each other, just how fragile a handhold, how tenuous a boundary separates us from the darkness- we are little flames, inadequately sheltered by thin walls from the tempest of dissolution and insensibility in which we flicker and are often but extinguished. Then the muted roar of battle surrounds us, and we creep into ourselves and stare wide-eyed into the night. The only comfort we have comes from the breathing of our sleeping comrades, and so we wait until the morning comes.