Chath Puja – First Aarg

Today was a very tough day for me. It is very hard to stay away from home and mom today. She is in the middle of the Chath puja and today was the evening aarg.

Today, she offered puja to the setting sun – perhaps the only festival in the world where setting sun is worshipped. Usually all mythologies, religion and cultures associate setting sun with the “end”, closure, termination of life. The splendid day is marked to the end when the sun starts to set in the west. All the warmth, human beings, animals, plants and weeds – everyone feels the source of eternal energy fading when there is no sun. The entire ecological system marks a change once sun sets. It marks the beginning of long dark night, wherein most of the evil thrives. Then sun comes out again and breathes life into the entire world – people get up, full of energy and everything is back to life, plants grow, flowers bloom. Thus it is always the rising sun which is worshipped – it is the ultimate source of power, pride, symbol of happiness and good times to come.
However in this unique Hindu festival, first the setting sun is worshipped – to show respect to the old and “once able” source. It is very important for human being to be humble and thankful to some one / something from which one has drawn life in past. And hence before tomorrow morning’s sun’s worship, today evening’s sun is worshipped and offered the same respect with the same rituals as it would happen tomorrow. It also teaches us a lesson of equanimity – towards powerful and weak, towards rich & poor, towards once almighty and the new almighty. This festival has very deep roots in richest Indian cultures and traditions, but as it is also one of the toughest, it never reached the masses like many other Indian festivals did.

I spent most of the day researching about Chath Puja over Internet, listening to the folk songs associated with this festival on you tube and watching videos of so many pujas all around the world. I was pleasantly surprised with the volume of information and details available on the web on this puja. Some useful links are here –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chhath
http://chhat.tripod.com/
http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/2007/11/chhath-puja-festival-of-sun-god-chhath.html
Collection of folk songs from Chath -
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=81CBE96518C85E02&search_query=chhath+songs

Like I would have done at home, around 4 pm I took bath, and drove to the beach ( water body ). I was desperately hoping that some Indian family would turn up for “aargs” at the beach. And I walked all along East Coast Park coastline almost 4 kms to find at least one family, with whom I can participate and offer “aarg” to the Sun GOD. To my utter disappointment, I found no one. There were thousands of people of the beach and but my eyes were searching in vain. Finally I stood alone in the Indian Ocean and offered by “Aarg” to my mother and the faith which drives her and all of us. I took some snaps of the setting sun in Singapore skyline and in the ocean, tried to capture the moment of my utter loneliness and desperation.

Back home, my son was representing me in the puja. Later in the evening I spoke to my parents and they were so happy with his presence and my younger brother has flown down yesterday to be with mom in the puja. My brother and my son, filled all the voids in the hearts and also took up lot of workload off my mother’s shoulder which is involved in the puja arrangements and pre-work.
This was one of the toughest days of my life and I had never cried so much ever– guess everything has a price including growing up, taking responsibilities ….. so here I was thousands of miles away on the other side of Indian Ocean alone and praying for my mother’s good health and that this puja like all the previous 34 years is completed successfully for her and for our entire family.