Light and sound

It begins with a bang follow- ed by a few more bangs. The number of bangs go on in-creasing till the first big festival Dussehra. That evening it becomes like canons firing from all sides. You can?t hear anything else. You can?t carry on any conversation, hear music, watch TV or get proper sleep.

The next morning, black smoke hangs in the air like a pestilent cloud. You breathe smoke till it chokes you.

The number of bangs decreases for a few days till the second big day of the festive season, Diwali. That day all hell breaks loose and you think the third world war has broken out. The noise is deafening, the smoke next morning thicker, inhaling it deadlier. It continues for some days till after the ammunition of bombs, crackers and sparklers and so on, runs out.

Meanwhile, rivers, lakes and the sea-coast get a dose of festival season poisoning: thousands of idols of Ganapati and Durga coated with deleterious stuff take their toll of millions of fish, turtles and other marine life.

Since the advent of loudspea-kers, yet another weapon has been added to the armoury of festival revellers. Their noise value was curbed by the Supreme Court three months ago when it imposed a ban on their use between 10 pm and 6 am. It assures us of peaceful sleep at night.

But there is nothing to do legally to stop noise-makers who do not need to use loudspeakers to make their presence felt during daytime. They are usually unlettered and underprivileged. They want to tell those better off than them that they don?t give a damn for middle-class decency and will be as inconsiderate towards their neighbours as they can during the festival season.

Consequently, our three most popular festivals, Dussehra, Diwali and Holi ? which we looked forward to eagerly year after year ? we now dread and have to seek protection from the law and the police to keep goondaism, drunkenness and violence under control.

As a nation we have the genius of converting the beautiful into the vulgar.

Death and after

Life after death, be it in paradise, hell or in another human, animal, bird or insect form, is a subject better left to the speculation of the spiritually-minded. Scientists and sceptics have put it out of their minds for the time being, to be thought over if fresh evidence is brought to light to re-examine it. So far there has been none. As far as heaven and hell are concerned, Mirza Ghalib put an end to the debate in two pithy lines :

Hum ko maloom hai jannat ki haqeeqat lekin/ Dilko khush rakhney keh liye Ghalib yeh khaayaal achhaa hai

We know the truth about paradise/ But says Ghalib/ It is a good idea to beguile the mind

The notion of rebirth in human or the animal form of life persists largely because Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism lend support to it. For reasons best known to them, the conventional figure of lives he or she can return to is 84 lakh ? chauraasee lakh jaan. Since we cannot communicate with other forms of life which cannot converse in human tongue, the only possibility of examining the theory is when a person is reborn in human form.

Scriptures of all the aforementioned religions assure us this is possible and has been proven to be so: the Gita asserts in no uncertain terms that death is no more than a person taking off old clothes to put on new ones. Every few months our newspapers carry stories about the birth of some child who, when he or she is able to speak, recalls members of the family he or she belonged to in previous lives. Nobody cares to follow up these stories and they disappear from the public mind to be followed by others. So the legend of rebirth continues.

The reason why I bring up the subject is an hour-long programme on Aaj Tak TV channel, entitled Punarjanam, next life. It had two families claiming that a child born in one was an incarnation of one who had belonged to the other in its previous life.

It was introduced by a man who started off by asserting that there was no doubt whatsover that when a person died, his or her atma (soul) floated about in space till it entered another at the appropriate time. Sitting beside him was a man with a foot long snow-white beard adding weight to his wisdom, who nodded his head in approval. The two families of the child who had died in one family to be reborn in the other were shown at intervals, both verifying the claims of punar janam.

The one word that was repeated dozens of times by all participants was vishwaas (faith). It is the one-word answer given by people who have run out of logic, reason and common sense. It was pathetic. What would have been proper was to subject the two families to a session of cross-examination by a panel of scientists and skeptics; they would have proved to the viewers of this channel that what these fellows were saying was absolute crap and the proper words to use for it was andh vishwas ? blind faith devoid of reason. It was wrong on the part of Aaj Tak to give publicity to gross superstition just to keep up its viewership.

Laloo Prasad gets a job

Laloo Prasad sent his bio-data to apply for a post in Microsoft Corporation USA. A few days later he got the reply: ?Dear Mr Laloo Prasad: You do not meet our requirement. Please do not send any further correspondence. No phone call shall be entertained. Thanks.? ? Bill Gates.

Laloo Prasad jumped with joy on receiving this reply. He arranged a press conference: ?Bhaiyon aur behno, aap ko jaan kar khushi hogee ki hum ko Amreeca mein naukri mill gayee hai.? Everyone was delighted. Laloo Prasad continued, ?Ab hum aap sab ko apna appointment letter padkar sunaaongaa. Par letter angreezee main hai isliyen saath-saath Hindi mein translate bhee karoonga.

Dear Mr Laloo Prasad ? Pyare Laloo Prasad bhaiyya. You do not meet ? aap to miltey hee naheen ho, our requirement ? humko to zaroorat hai. Please do not send any further correspondence ? ab letter vetter bhejne ka kaouno zaroorat nahee. No phone call ? phoonwa ka bhee zaroorat nahee hai, shall be entertained ? bahut khaatir kee jayegi. Thanks ? aapka bahut bahut dhanyavad. Bill Gates ? Bilva.