Diwali

"Diwali also known as Deepavali and the "festival of lights", is an ancient Hindu festival celebrated in autumn every year.^[4][5] The festival spiritually signifies the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, good over evil, and hope over despair."

Three years ago living in New Delhi I thought that I was in the midst of a war zone, crackers everywhere, like bombs reigned from the ground, the sky, wherever one looked there was smoke.  The pollution level in Delhi, just from this holiday, went up considerably in the span of a few hours.

In Karjanha, Siraha a very different story.  Children invited me to their homes for a meal.  Before this working in my garden, a bicycle ride, shopping at the Karjanha haat bazaar and painting the Hospital canteen.  Only a few crackers were lit, candles burned brightly from a smattering of homes; the Hospital looked beautiful with some rangolis made by nurses. 

My children friends were so very happy that I came to their homes for a meal.  I am being treated more as a family member; I don't have to sit in a chair and I can eat with everybody else, although I use a utensil to eat.  This is the treat for me as I become, even for a short time, more accepted. 

The first meal was rice and a lot of fried stuff.  There were also the traditional Diwali sweets.  I knew that I would have to eat at the next house and so tried to not eat too much.  But there is always the pushing to eat more, thankfully people accepted my, "no thanks". 

The second meal was not too much, although more than I should have eaten, still I didn't feel sick when I had finished. 

Another child friend invited me to his house, but I said I won't eat anything.  We decided that I would come to his home the next evening, but that we would go to his father's new shop for a ceremony to bless the store.

Unfortunately throughout the day I was trying to deal with one employee deciding that he would not come into work the next day.  This employee was being shifted to a former assignment.  Although I told him that he would be terminated if he did not come he refused, even after attempts by other staff to get him to work.  When we tried to get current staff to cover the shift they responded that they were off and wouldn't come in.  Finally another staff person was able to convince someone who worked in a different department to come in.

While at the store being blessed I was being called by on-duty staff to come to my flat as they were waiting for me.  When I arrived there were 10 or so staff singing and dancing around a dish of money. As explained to me they were waiting for me to give them money.  When I tried to put in NPR 50 they said no; indicating that they wanted more.  I asked what this was for and they explained that they were to be given the money in order to make some sweets or split the money, as this wasn't really clear.  The medical director's wife had just put in some money.  I sat down and said no that I give money every month to the employee fund and that I wasn't going to give money to a few people, which I didn't think was at all fair.  I said why don't we give this money and do something for the community.  Nobody seemed to want to hear this. 

I could tell that I totally deflated the party.  Having to deal with the above employee issue and ruining another staff person's day who was working on this was at the top of my mind. Giving money to a few employees who were on duty was not something that I could easily deal with.  In addition I decided to work a shift for someone at the pharmacy because nobody else would work and it seemed quite important that the staff person who had duty was given the evening off to celebrate.

What is Diwali about or for that matter any holiday?  Celebrating with family and friends, eating, enjoying.  It appears though that like Christmas/Hanukah in the US, Diwali has become about money. 

What if we spent money on helping the poor and not ourselves; not necessarily giving money to people, which I'm not sure how much this helps one in poverty, but rather spending money on food, helping children with their class fees, buying a new uniform or slippers, developing businesses, etc.  Why shouldn't Diwali be a holiday about helping others and not necessarily ourselves? A time when those of us who have a job, consider ourselves fortunate to be earning a bit to support ourselves and our families. 

I tend to  be a bit of a "dreamer", idealistic, at times to a fault, defeating my spirit as I am disappointed by myself and others for not doing enough or just thinking of others and not only ourselves and our own families.  This has become my life long journey slowly evolving throughout my life in the US, India and Nepal.  This is about taking my own despair about the state of the world and having hope that things will eventually change. 

Addendum:

On Saturday, after the library,  Dr. Nabin from our Branch invited me to his home for what I thought would be a small get together.  I rode my bicycle to his home about three km from Karjanha in Gautari VDC.  Another employee had come to the Hospital on his motorcycle and I followed him.  As we approached the home I could someone giving a speech. When I entered the family's courtyard there were more than 100 men, women and children gathered around a stage, listening to, what turned out to be an Indian guru. I ended up taking loads of pictures.

After the guru left everybody stood up and plastic cloths were placed on the ground for people to sit on and eat a meal.  As it turned out this meal was something that Dr. Nabin's family did on Diwali for people living in his Village.  I was told that upwards of 300 people, many of them poor, were fed. 

This was the Diwali that I was waiting for.  The meal reminded me of times that I had spent in Dalhousie, Himachal Pradesh with my friend Onkar and his family.  On Onkar's father's birthday a meal would be prepared for the poor and also his friends.  The difference between Onkar's and Dr. Nabin's family's meal was that everybody ate together, i.e. there was no separation between rich and poor in Gautari.  Dr. Nabin's family, i.e. father, mother, sister, brother and others served the meal.

All too quickly it was becoming dark and Dr. Nabin had a young man ride his bicycle ahead of me to show me the way back to Karjanha.  As the bugs bounced off of my face, my tires bounced off of the rock studded dirt road and the evening became black, I thought how a stronger spiritual force always shows me the way.  When I have doubts there is always something to show me that there is light at the end of the darkness and there is hope over despair. 

Back in Karjanha, I went to my friend Bibek's home where I had some milk tea and then fresh buffalo milk.  I sat around with Bibek's family and I was home.