Forum Mall decorated for Deepavali

Deepavali (As called in South India) or Diwali (As known in Rest of India), is a festival of lights. People decorate their houses with lights (oil lamps). The entire surrounding gets lit up with all neighbours participating in this festival. This festival builds up harmony among neigbhours and promote wellness in the locality.

The oil lamps have almost given way to candle lamps in modern times that too specially in cities. In the modern times electric lights have also been used frequently to decorate shops and establishments to welcome its customers on the auspicious festival of Deepavali/Diwali. One such decoration is the subject matter of this article.

The Forum Mall in Hosur Road of Bangalore, is a well known place for hangout for the residents. One week before the Deepavali/Diwali the Mall got decorated with electric lights. I captured this on my Mobile camera.

The Hindus of India

Hinduism is the principal religion of India. It preaches God's existence everywhere, making it a more complex religion much could not understand. In the other religions one can see merely the existence of one or no god at all. Hinduism cannot be compared with any such religions or beliefs.








The word Hindu cannot be found in any of the Vedic literatures which are considered to be the foundation of Hinduism. It is vaguely the Muslim invaders who came after Alexander the great's conquest that coined the word Hindu for the inhabitants who lived across the Sindhu/Indus river. This could be the only logical point in history where the word could have been coined. This fact gets more logic if we consider the fact that the word Hindu does not have a origin from any of the known Indian languages including Sanskrit.

Therefore by the definition, one can easily identify that they do not belong to one ideology, or one disciple. This makes the Hindu religion multifaceted and manifold. People talk and worship multiple God's, treat animals as God or as God's vehicle.

The ideology, a Hindu believes in can be traced back to four Vedas which are Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharava Veda. This is just a vague classification of a Hindu, rather than a full fledged classification.

Thus drilling deep into the ideologies of each Hindu one can reach a state/God called Paramatmah. The Hindu ideology believes in re-birth where an atmah (Soul) separates from a body at the time of death and unites with a new body upon birth. This re-birth cycle continues until the Soul gets Moksha (Salvation) and unites with a Paramatmah (Vaguely a Bigger Soul) and the Soul do not gets a new birth in the form a new body in this earth. This Paramatmah is considered to be God by Saints who completely forget their body to attain this Moksha. The Saints consider salvation as the sole purpose of which they are born with a new body. Infact the life of a Hindu is said to be passed through four Ashramas or states:

1. Bramacharya (State of being a student learning and worshipping God)

2. Grihasta Ashrama (State of being in a household, maintaining a family and discharging his duties and worshipping God)

3. Vanaprastha Ashrama (State of 

4. Sanyasa Ashrama (Sainthood), where one sacrifices every known pleasures, family, wealth and moves to a forest to worship inorder to attain Salvation.

The fourth ashrama is meant for everyone, every human being irrespective of caste and creed found within Hinduism.

The ideologies of Hinduism are divided according to the people, and their work. There can be roughly four classifications as such:

A Kshatriya (Warrior) class is required to be indulged in Political affairs, administration etc. They where the Kings, Ministers in the Kingdom. They should excel in warfare, administration and also among others Worshipping God.

A Brahman (Priest) class is required to perform Puja for others, and they are supposed to make a living out of it. 

The Vysya (Trader) class is required to do business, trade and merchandise.

The Sudra (Worker) class is required to be the labour class who can do physically challenging works.

Though this class system had been devised on basis of division of work, which in modern times have been the important business tactic, has been misinterpreted and misunderstood in India and elsewhere. This class system led to the creation of an Upper caste and a Lower caste. Though this was purely conceptualized by those who had wrond thoughts about this class system, it has been wrongly credited to Vedas and the Manusmrithi (The code of Manu).

But whatever the contradictions be, this ideology what is known as Hinduism today is the oldest in the world. It would be difficult to prove this fact due to the method of information transfer. The information was passed from generations through mouth rather than scriptures. Perhaps due to this method of information exchange what we are seeing today is very much different from what it was conceived for. 

With this point in mind, I could predict that we humankind where perfect at some point of time in the untold, unknown times and we are deteriorating towards an unknown state.

The vehicle is divine

In India a vehicle is not only treated as a medium of transport but much more than that. It is a friend for some, it is a family member for other some. These are not only a bunch of people's emotions but altogether constitutes the country's emotions. Some pray to the vehicle as though it is God.

Indians consider safer journeys most important rather than speedy journeys. This choice of safer journey may be also influenced from the sentiments which Indians live with. They consider a small scratch on their vehicle as heart-breaking.

What more can a vehicle ask for? Well there is a tradition which is catching up very fast in India, a tradition called Ayudha Puja (Puja of Instruments/Weapons). The long friend, Vehicle is getting added to this list. This though is of recent origin. In early years where vehicles where pulled by animals, they where worshipped. But the mechanical vehicles are also getting worshipped now in India.