Modak !

Ha! The title seems tasty, doesn't it ? Those yummy little sweets you eat every year often with a generous quantity of ghee oozing out of them!

                                            

Made your mouth water, did I ? Foodies, I tell you, must be waiting every year for the modaks, not for Ganpati Bappa!
The role festivals play in the lives of people all the world, and more so in the festival-loving India is often understated. For all types of believers ( I remember how much I hate the word BelieBer every time I write believer :D), strong, lazy, reluctant and non-believers, festivals always bring good. I tried to list out the various benefits of having festivals...

Positivity:
They give you a break from all your tight daily schedules, stress and politics around. Everyone has enough stress already, plus you hear about Coalgate everyday before you use your Colgate, then there's Dr. MMS who is devoid of any Mamata ... the list is endless! And yet here we are, welcoming our beloved Lord, heedless to everything else for some time, engrossed in fervour. Even an atheist won't deny the overall positivity that the day brings.

Meeting friends and relatives:
Going to your friends and relatives is more about getting together after a long time. And people invariably crack the same old jokes... and laugh on them too! And you also get to eat your aunite/mausi/daadi ke haath ka laddu ! Burrrp ! Psst Psst... kaan idhar karo... *whispers* you can also taapofy any of your friend's friend if you get lucky ! kisi ko batana nahi :P.

Hope, strength and calm:
Festivities usher in a calmness in people's minds, give hope to the hopeless and mental strength to the troubled. The belief in a just power superior to the mortals renews the spirit. They world lives on hope, they say (although you can still have that laddu ! ).

All said and done, there's a proper way of celebrating. As I have said before, every ritual you perform has a meaning and a reason. Most people, including me, don't understand a word of the puja performed by the 'hired' pujari. They speak ten times faster than that fast-speaking-college-professor of yours! And sometimes I wonder if they themselves understand what they say. People who go blaring loudspeakers, political parties who cash in on the festivities are hurting the festival itself. You're kinda missing the point !

Have a happy and joyous Ganesh Chaturthi everyone!