Rituals and Realities.

All of us have some regular habits or practices that have become part of our lives. We read newspaper, watch TV, go for a walk, play games, go for shopping, perform some religious acts such as visiting a shrine, etc. All these and many more have become a routine in our daily rhythm. We go through them out of a habit, rather than for finding meaning or inspiration from them.

I watched, a couple engaging an auto-rikshaw outside a shrine, after offering their prayers. There was an intense argument between this couple and the driver that the couple used abusive language and threatened him for overcharging. There was a marginal increase in the fare from what it used to be a few months back. I thought it was a fair fare. There was little integration between prayer and consideration for others in this instance.

It is this incident which made me think about rituals and realities. Most of us go through the motion of doing many things without absorbing their meaning or message into our lives.

Out of 17 educational institutions in a town, only two institutions did anything symbolically to help the employees, who were affected by devastating rain and floods. One head of the institution whom I met shortly after this mentioned to me, ‘natural calamities happen always. We cannot be doing anything for our staff every time such things happen’. The same Institution was getting ready then for its inter-collegiate cultural festival, spending huge amounts in promotion and advertisement.

Observations, happenings or experiences are expected to bring meaning and content to our lives. Vikram observed that his classmate, Ali, had only one pair of torn shoes to wear to school and no sports shoes. He gave away his old pairs of sports shoes and school shoes to Ali, with the permission of his mother. I asked Vikram, what made him do this! ‘I felt that I need to respond to a reality that drew my attention’, he replied.

All experiences in our lives have the potential to invite us to think, consider, and act as they move us or hold our attention for a response. The more we live in a dynamic process of allowing experiences to touch and transform us, the more we are moving away from ritualism to reality. Rituals are meant to lead us to realities they represent. Exchanging a ring between a bride and bridegroom is a ritual at a wedding ceremony. It represents the reality that husband and wife are beholden to each other in love.


M.C.Mathew