Mahadev..

Mahashrivratree. The time of the year where you see the devotee of the Lord Shiva to and from Grand Bassin.

As a proud Hindu, born and bred in the Hindu faith, i often hear how people encourages you to pray when you are going through difficulties, pray in every situation when you need help or a sign from the Almighty, pray for safety, pray to attain wealth, pray for health,  and the list goes on..

Every year single year, when i am around, i make it a must to go to Grand bassin. Despite not being religious kind of guy, i do believe in god (just in case he/she does exist). I take it as a my trip to Grand bassin as a tradition by not even walking but comfortably in my car. Our trip to Grand bassin is fun. There is the free food and drinks, a bit of fun looking around and chatting for hours with the guys.  But most importantly, as soon as we reach our holy destination, we switch to praying mode and the most satisfying thing is that we pray together as One.

One of the things about grand bassin is how there is FOOD and DRINKS (non alcoholic of course) for FREE!!! But on the other side, there is a lack of hygienic bathrooms. My best friend, with whom i go every year, goes nuts on the food when we go to Grand Bassin and as every single year, we take a good hour to find him a toilet or a nice bush for him. EVERY SINGLE YEAR, we go through that.

The colourful Kawars are just awesome. They are gorgeous to look at but what i hate about it, is that we (hindus) are inconsiderate towards other, towards our community itself.  Kawar  should be built at the right size so we avoid troubling others on our way. Instead of being creative and respectful to our God, we put loud music (remixof bhajans??) and flirt all the way to our lake.

My religious is, being righteous. Any Hindu should be proud of farming part in this community. We are amongst ver few communities that have fun festivals. Holy and Diwali are just the two more common ones. How we celebrate it? By praying, fasting and spend time and money by lighting up our house and giving sweets away.

In my opinion, this is not how we are meant to celebrate. These festivals are meant to celebrate with laughter and pride. To make new friends, new acquaintance. To share the joy. To be generous. To remember the act of faith of Hanuman to Ram and Sita (thats a bit extreme to rip you chest out but am talking about the gesture). To sing. To dance.  To put colours in our dull and monotonous lives.

We are one of the oldest religion in history. We are numerous but yet we are strangers towards each other instead of being friendly.