ANDRE BAGOO Saturday, October 17 2009

PRESIDENT George Maxwell Richards has urged the nation to “make respect for humanity” a way of life and to be channels for joy, love and peace.

In his Divali greeting, the President quoted poets Roysie Ganpat and Reshma Mituram, but made no reference to the events of the past week which saw dozens of Chinese workers protest over what they say is the failure of a private company to pay them their salaries.

“Divali is a celebration that occurs once a year. But could we not make respect for humanity, goodwill towards all and hope in our collective ability to shape better lives for all of us elements that are inherent in this festival a way of life that reaches its zenith in the day that we call Divali?” Richards asked.

He argues that every individual has “individually and as part of a community to be channels for the joy, the love and the peace and to not just deter, but to eschew the negative emotions that tend to imprison us in our relations with one another.

“Both Roysie Ganpat and Reshma Mituram, hardly known to many of us, writing in the years 2001 and 2002, respectively, have provided inspiration, through their poems, for the message that I am led to give to the nation on the occasion of Divali 2009.

“The common theme is holding on to the symbolism of Divali as guide for living throughout the year. Both writers have lauded several of the elements associated with this festival, most sacred to Hindus, embracing the material aspects which provoke the emotions and spiritual dimension that come to the fore.

“Introducing the piece with a physical yet, at the same time, spiritual note, Ganpat points to the fasting, then cleaning, shopping, dressing, cooking, singing and the lighting of deyas and exclaims “Excitement is what it brings me…Joy is what it brings me…Infinite peace is what it brings me.

“But as the day ends and the lights go out, there is the funereal gloom of picking up the ‘dead deyas’ and removing the ‘bent bamboo’. One can relate to the sadness, until, like a flash of light, one remembers that the time of the lights will come again, next year and the writer pens: ‘Renewed hope is what it brings me’ and exhorts us to give thanks. Then Mituram opens with a wish that the day of celebration would never end and goes on to express the joy and happiness overflowing to tears, the music and laughter, fusing in such a way, that the writer is impelled, by the giddiness of pure joy and love, to reach out to all humanity, in an act of sharing,” the President said.

One can imagine her, in seeming anguish, as she hopes that the day, the moment, the feeling could last forever, ending as she had begun.