Dashain, Nepal’s biggest festival, began on the first day of October. Almost all Nepalese festivals are based on Lunar Calendar. So, this was an unusual coincidence. But we don’t commonly use the English calendar. (We call it English. Is it Roman? I’m confused!) You know, it went unnoticed, at least to me, until now.
The second day of Dashain marks the beginning of Navaratri- the nine days (or nights?). Navaratri literally means nine nights but we worship nine Goddesses these nine days. I’m really confused by the definition.
The Goddesses we worship are the representatives of Nature and Mothers, we say. However, some people kill female foetuses because they want sons. Men believe sons carry on their races. Do they really?
Genetically speaking, a son gets a Y-chromosome from their father and an X-chromosome from their (This singular “their” is confusing me now!) mother. Geneticists say, “Y-chromosome is almost empty. Most of the characters in a son are related to their (singular, again!) mother.” While daughters have two X-chromosomes, one from father and one from mother, they seem to carry father’s legacy more than their male siblings.
Practically, legacy and races are carried on by both the sexes. A male and a female give birth to or adopt children, groom them up and those children represent whatever they learn from parents. That’s what legacy is. We are confusing legacy with birth, while it’s actually is karma. (Wow, I can use this word in English without an explanation!) While talking about race, we narrow ourselves into some surname or a community. Why not think about the human race as a whole?
I have been deviated from what I wanted to say. I was talking about Dashain and with it, ‘To eat or not to eat (meat) is the question.’ Bali (sacrifice) is defined by experts differently based on their preferences. Some say, “Sacrifice your animalistic characters.” And some, “Sacrifice your animals.” To me both seem right but I have to follow one. I follow the latter. I eat meat and I can not support the previous. I’m already a devil to them. But being a vegetarian (Is this a polite word? Somewhere I read, it is!) does not particularly mean one is an epitome of goodness. I can point out some people but don’t want to do it here. Find them out yourselves, will you?
I don’t think it would be right to say, “Don’t eat meat because it is bad.” If it were that bad, we would never be introduced to it in the first place. If you want to eat, eat it. If you don’t want, don’t. But don’t show hatred towards those who eat meat. With increasing droughts, desertification, and probable nuclear apocalypse, meat-eating people might find it easy to survive than the rest. Who knows if a lifetime vegetarian will have to eat meat in such a situation? (I remember watching a scene like this in some movie. I don’t remember the name though.) Because at times of wars and apocalypse, moral values don’t matter. Only thing that counts is survival.
I don’t want to debate though. I just want to say that Navaratri has come to an end. The debate thus ends until the next year.
And I want you to celebrate this wonderful day, which has already passed in some Asian countries, and is about to end in less than an hour in Nepal. It 10th of October. 10th day of the 10th month. Calendars tell me it’s World Mental Health Day. (I nearly wrote World Health Day. But Mental Health Day would also be on Health Day according to WHO’s definition.)
If you have been really confused reading this article, all I wanted to say is that I am totally confused over these days. Confused mind might not be a good health indicator but we live confused lives in this confused world. Why should I only feel guilty about it. Let’s share the guilt together. To sum up, I would like to end this article with a comment (I have not copied it except the first sentence- that was the easiest!) on Science Alert’s Facebook page:
Humans are strange. They create moral principles, discuss over what they should do to make their lives peaceful and religious. But they also create weapons for total destruction.
