Paras Ra­moutar

Trinidad will be ablaze to­day as thou­sands of Hin­dus cel­e­brate the spring fes­ti­val of Phag­wa (Holi) at over 100 cen­tres. Sev­er­al Hin­du re­li­gious and cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­di­vid­ual groups will par­tic­i­pate in var­i­ous com­pe­ti­tions for cash and oth­er prizes at these judg­ing points. Phag­wa is not the Hin­du Car­ni­val, and the sev­er­al or­gan­is­ing groups have warned that they will not tol­er­ate the drink­ing of al­co­hol, eat­ing of meat or lewd be­hav­iour be­cause Phag­wa has a deep and se­ri­ous spir­i­tu­al sig­nif­i­cance. Among the ma­jor groups stag­ing cel­e­bra­tions are the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) led by Sat­narayan Ma­haraj; the Hin­du Prachar Kendra un­der the tute­lage of Shri Ravji; and Gee­ta Ram­s­ingh, and the Na­tion­al Phag­wa Coun­cil. Both Ma­haraj and Shri Ravji have an­nounced that they are yet to re­ceive the an­nu­al Gov­ern­ment sub­ven­tions to help de­fray the grow­ing costs. Ma­haraj said the SDMS cel­e­bra­tions are pro­ject­ed to cost over one mil­lion dol­lars as it has three com­po­nents, cli­max­ing with to­day's grand fi­nale.

Rather, it has a very tran­scen­den­tal mes­sage for all mankind. It is a mes­sage of truth, faith, hon­esty, gra­cious­ness and about life it­self. It con­tains and de­picts in­fi­nite spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. It is as­so­ci­at­ed with chow­tal singing, shak­ing of jhalls, tas­sa drum­ming and the throw­ing of abeer. But what is this all about? Is it just sheer mer­ri­ment, or is there an­oth­er deep­er and spir­i­tu­al mes­sage? How can one de­scribe Hi­ranyaka­shipu's be­hav­iour not on­ly to his son, whom he had begged dear­ly for, but to mankind? Is that mes­sage a dead or ir­rel­e­vant one with the pas­sage of time? How would one de­scribe Hi­ranyaka­shipu's at­ti­tude in the con­text of the func­tion­ing of Prakri­ti, and by ex­ten­sion the three Gu­nas or forces?

Leg­end has it that an old woman's grand­child was to be sac­ri­ficed to a fe­male de­mon named Ho­li­ka and a re­li­gious leader in the com­mu­ni­ty ad­vised her that abuse and foul lan­guage would sub­due Ho­li­ka. The old woman col­lect­ed many chil­dren and made them abuse Ho­li­ka with foul lan­guage, and the de­mon fell on the ground and died, and the chil­dren made a bon­fire of her re­mains. A con­nect­ing chord to this episode is Bhak­ta Pra­ha­l­ad's de­vo­tion to Lord Narayana and his sub­se­quent es­cape from death at the hands of Ho­li­ka.

Pra­ha­l­ad's fa­ther, King Hi­ranyaka­shipu, pun­ished him in a va­ri­ety of ways to change his de­vo­tion­al mind and make him world­ly-mind­ed. But he failed in his at­tempts and at last, he or­dered his sis­ter Ho­li­ka (who had a boon to re­main un­burnt even in­side fire) to take Pra­ha­l­ad on her lap and en­ter in­to the blaz­ing flames. She did so, and she sub­se­quent­ly per­ished. Pra­ha­l­ad re­mained un­touched in the fire and kept laugh­ing. He was not af­fect­ed by the fire on ac­count of the Grace of Lord Narayana. And this sto­ry of Pra­ha­l­ad un­folds, we mor­tals must not look at it as just an­oth­er sto­ry with­out any moral, eth­i­cal or spir­i­tu­al rel­e­vance. For sure, Hi­ranyaka­shipu did not mea­sure up to the Sattvic as­pect of the Prakritri which em­bod­ies pu­ri­ty, light and har­mo­ny. He failed that one, too. And look at the Ra­jas as­pect which com­pris­es pas­sion, ac­tiv­i­ty and mo­tion, all of which failed as well.

Hi­ranyaka­shipu was a stub­born man just like many to­day. He was set to con­quer the world­ly ob­jects, sens­es and plea­sures. Look how this was a no­ble be­ing on the thresh­old of con­quer­ing death and, ob­tain­ing spir­i­tu­al lib­er­a­tion through his de­vo­tion to Lord Narayana, and he quick­ly changed his agen­da. There is a be­ing who has been and who will al­ways be in charge of this world and our lives. This be­lief is echoed in oth­er re­li­gions. Phag­wa fol­lows the re­li­gious Hin­du ob­ser­vance of Shi­va Raa­tri, and the Chris­t­ian pe­ri­od of lent, all of which pay homage to a high­er force. Phag­wa re­calls the vic­to­ry of the op­pressed against op­pres­sors and the ide­al that Supreme Jus­tice will pre­vail. It reaf­firms that truth, good­ness and jus­tice will al­ways be present. There is no doubt that Pra­ha­l­ad suf­fered im­mense­ly at the hands of his fa­ther and aunt, but the sto­ry demon­strates that no mat­ter what pun­ish­ment one may re­ceive at the hands of evil-do­ers, sur­vival is cer­tain once there is strong and un­con­di­tion­al faith in God.