Saying "good bye"

 Our Ganapati (yes, that is the relationship I feel we all develop with the Ganesh idol once the Lord is installed at home where the idol suddenly assumes a very happy, blessed look) immersion day is with the Gauri immersion. 

Always, each year, even when I know that the beatific presence is going to be amidst us next year, I feel truly unhappy to bid  farewell to the Lord as absolutely attached I feel to the idol. Well, for quite some time, I cannot even look at the devhara where the idol used to be. 

Much worse, I cannot look at the bucket in which these days my brother immerses the idol. My head tells me that it is the best, environmentally responsible solution. Yet my heart keeps on aching, my soul starts awaiting  already the festive presence next year. Tacitly I check the next year calendar roughly.

Saying good bye is difficult, nay, impossible. One is attached to everything, the structure one calls home, the plants that you nourish, the pet who loves you to distraction, the books you adore, your musical instrument, your paints n brushes, why, every utensil in the kitchen, too. A memory, or thousands, plays hide n seek everywhere. Why, now the Himalayas are mine, too. Reading about the monsoon, and man-made (f)actually, horrors there is extremely painful.

Hence, despite reading the Geeta, and some of our other such texts, I cannot digest the fact of death easily. All consolations do resonate, but only to a certain point. Deep down, the void continues to ache, right?

Ah, that brings us to the death of a relationship, extremely difficult. It is in this context that I would like to talk about Rahul Deshpande's announcement of his divorce. Despite all the ugly comments and gossip that flooded in, I feel that he alone knows the truth. Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches! Sure, his parents, siblings, close friends, all of them would have discussed the issue with him. Why, the court, too, always assigns a counsellor before a legal separation or divorce. 

In other words, nobody has any right to publically dissect his decision.  As for the kid, constantly warring parents, too, create a havoc in a child's universe. So instead of pitying, blasting Rahul, bullying the artist in him, i suppose, he deserves his private space. Period.

The only grouse I have is that extremely filmy, rather Bollywood-y, language that he has used to publically declare the private decision. Personally, I do not even understand the need thereof. But if he had to announce it publically, why such goof-up linguistically? It gives rise to wild guesses such as  the divorce as a tax saving gimmick!

Publicity stunts are always a no-no for me. It seems, there is a video/a reel of Rahul Deshpande cutting his moustache on camera! Ugh! Who watches such nonsense? If true, such spectators, too, deserve such celebrities! And, vice versa!  Why the blurring between the intimate and the societal? While teaching Business Communication, I discuss the four spheres of contact, and I do feel that these be respected! Intimate relationships cannot be monetized. Nor  can they be weapon-ised to attack Individuals.

In brief, saying good bye cannot be a public event, with a frivolous divorce party thrown in! The death of a relationship deserves a certain gravitas!

Pratima@ "All happy families," wrote Tolstoy,  "are alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own unique way."