...in the air

Summer is here! Its the festive season and the atmosphere reminds me of holidays in India. Dusshera/Diwali was time off from school. The air was filled with the fragrance of incense and flowers and camphor. The weather was a pleasant warm and we kids would eat, run around and be merry!
It is hard to believe that a cynical old cow like me would enjoy anything traditional - but I love festivals. Most of all I love the 'festive air'. It fills me with hope and joy.
I bought a car two weeks back. I am yet to see if my meagre PhD pay permits such luxuries, however thank the Lord God for my parents! After picking it up I wanted to take it to the temple. Canberra does not have a 'Vahana Ganapathi' and such conveniences so we have to make do with the standard God at the standard temple. Anyhow, since we got there after nightfall, turns out the Gods do not look kindly upon poojas done in the dark. I was content with having the car touch temple ground and smearing some 'kumkum'.
This got me thinking again. I am a physicist (on paper). Every single day at work I am supposed to unearth the mysteries of the universe. I read Maxwell, Einstein and the like. Yet every time I move house I boil milk, I say a prayer every morning on waking up, I take cars to temple and do pooja to my bike on 'Ayudh Pooja' day. All very contradictory really. So I asked myself that question - Why?
In a single word the answer is - reassurance. For me it is as simple as hoping that outcomes are out of human hands! That my efforts will be rewarded, even if by 'divine' intervention! That something/someone watches over my loved ones, because Physics certainly does not ensure that!
Of late life has been passing me by at a phenomenal rate! So much seems to have happened that I was definitely a part of, yet I feel like I stood and watched it from afar.