{"id":845,"date":"2011-03-04T07:30:53","date_gmt":"2011-03-04T07:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/2011\/03\/04\/krj-yash-30\/"},"modified":"2020-04-12T20:19:34","modified_gmt":"2020-04-12T16:19:34","slug":"krj-yash-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/krj-yash-30\/","title":{"rendered":"Is anything acceptable in the name of Maha Shivaratri?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By KRJ Yash<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Ce qui compte<\/u><\/em> vraiment\u2026<\/em><\/u>\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Premi\u00e8rement\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Why do Hindus celebrate Maha Shivaratri or any other religious festival for that matter? Why do Hindus go to temples or Ganga Talao (should we say Ganga Sarovar?)? I guess the most logical answer to these questions would be: \u2018to uplift themselves spiritually\u2019. The ultimate aim of any Hindu should be to attain moksha <\/em>or liberation \u2013 to free oneself from the cycle of births and deaths. Is this really why Hindus celebrate religious festivals or go to temples? In recent years, we have witnessed a rise in the \u2018spirituality\u2019 level of Hindus. For the Krishna Janmasthami festival, there is now a huge traffic jam at the Phoenix roundabout given the increasing number of \u2018devotees\u2019 attending the ceremony. The same phenomenon can also be witnessed at Ganga Talao for Maha Shivaratri or Ganesh Chaturthi.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was appalled to learn about the reaction of some members of the VOH at Grand Bassin on Friday last. Should media coverage be of any concern to anybody attending a prayer ceremony? This reminds me of a Buddhist book I read few years ago \u2013 a book which talks about something called \u2018spiritual materialism\u2019. What is \u2018spiritual materialism\u2019? It is when people go to temple to show off; it is when people go to temple so that others think they are spiritually uplifted; it is when people do prayers so that others say they are \u2018good\u2019 people; in short, it is when people act in a spiritual or religious way merely to display a good image of themselves. In today\u2019s world, \u2018good\u2019 and \u2018bad\u2019 coexist in every individual. Either of these qualities can predominate in us at any point in time. But, to say the least, when one is attending a prayer ceremony, \u2018good\u2019 should prevail. Among others, good qualities constitute non-violence in words, thought and deed. Is this too much to expect from a Hindu attending a religious ceremony?<\/span><\/p>\n

Every morning in the few weeks preceding each and every Hindu festival (Maha Shivarathri, Cavadee, Navarathri, Ougadi, to name but a few), the MBC radio broadcasts special programmes. For Maha Shivarathri, the devotees were being told what to do and where not to go on their way to\/from Ganga Talao and at Ganga Talao. After observing the pilgrims on their way to\/from Ganga Talao, I have understood the \u2018why\u2019 of those programmes. I can only hope that these programmes help change positively the behaviour of at least a few pilgrims every year. Otherwise, I guess the various Hindu organisations have to use other channels to convey the message \u2013 private radios, the internet or perhaps a dedicated \u2018Hindu Radio\u2019 to help promote the Hindu values…<\/span><\/p>\n

Deuxi\u00e8mement<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Apr\u00e8s le CPE, voil\u00e0 le ranking pour supermarch\u00e9s: on nous prend pour des enfants\u00a0!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Allez dans n\u2019importe quelle boutique, tabagie ou supermarch\u00e9, prenez n\u2019importe quel rayon, choisissez le produit que vous voulez, retournez-le et vous verrez le MRP\u00a0: Maximum Retail Price. Il s\u2019agit du prix maximum que vous devez payer pour ce produit et surtout du prix maximum qu\u2019un commer\u00e7ant pourra vous r\u00e9clamer. Si l\u2019Inde peut le faire, et ce malgr\u00e9 la taille de son territoire et l\u2019immense vari\u00e9t\u00e9 de produits qui se concurrencent, pourquoi avons-nous tant de mal\u00a0?<\/span><\/p>\n

La langue de bois est pratiqu\u00e9e \u00ab\u00a0across the board\u00a0\u00bb par ceux qui sont responsables du bien-\u00eatre des consommateurs. Maurice compte, tant et plus, de \u00ab\u00a0grands d\u00e9fenseurs\u00a0\u00bb des consommateurs. Mais quelle est la derni\u00e8re bataille remport\u00e9e par ces soi-disant associations de d\u00e9fense de votre porte-monnaie\u00a0? Ce n\u2019est pas facile de r\u00e9pondre \u00e0 cette question, bien vrai, n\u2019est-ce pas\u00a0?<\/span><\/p>\n

Croyez-vous que ceux qui distribuent les subventions \u00e0 ces associations ont int\u00e9r\u00eat \u00e0 mettre un pied dans la fourmili\u00e8re\u00a0? A chaque fois on entend les m\u00eames histoires\u00a0; on en reprend les m\u00eames et on recommence. Les ann\u00e9es se suivent et se ressemblent: les montants se r\u00e9partissent entre les associations mais voyez-vous des r\u00e9sultats\u00a0? Pourquoi continuer \u00e0 gaspiller nos imp\u00f4ts pour subventionner des associations qui sont d\u00e9pass\u00e9es\u00a0?<\/span><\/p>\n

Les ministres se succ\u00e8dent. Ils tentent tous de trouver, sans succ\u00e8s, un moyen pour contr\u00f4ler la marge de profit des commer\u00e7ants. En mettant en place le MRP, les commer\u00e7ants tout comme les importateurs conna\u00eetraient imm\u00e9diatement leur marge de profit. Qu\u2019est-ce qui retient le ministre\u00a0?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

* Published in print edition on 3 March 2011<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By KRJ Yash<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":300,"featured_media":6560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[1532,3281,23405,1226,4688,22174,1225,23406],"class_list":["post-845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-cpe","tag-ganesh-chaturthi","tag-ganga-sarovar","tag-ganga-talao","tag-krishna-janmasthami","tag-krj-yash","tag-maha-shivaratri","tag-maximum-retail-price"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/MT-Logokk.jpg?fit=1200%2C880&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QzSF-dD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/300"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}