We had almost missed [rather forgot] the Saraswathi[Goddess of Knowledge & Wisdom] pooja today if not for Harini’s mom who promptly reminded us with a call. As such harini was inventing ways to keep herself busy around the house [besides walking up and down the floors a dozen times and log-in/log-out of yahoo messager a hundred times], this came as blessing. She charged up and in a span of two hours had prepared and offered the pooja to Lord Saraswathi. Since moving to this new townhouse, we now have our own concrete yard at the front door. So harini has done a pretty nice and big kolam too[hand-drawn decor on the floor].
As soon as I was back, I offered my prayers to Goddess. Harini had all our favourite books and our sruthi box lined up infront of the Goddess. As I was chanting the slogas, I was wondering does it still make sense to place and give tribute to just those books alone anymore to Saraswathi? Do you understand where I am eluding to?
Should saraswathi pooja’s in the 21 century add Internet in addition to the books? I mean, It sounds ridculous but seems logical? How much time do i spend really learning and acquiring knowledge from books? On an average, about 30 minutes a day. How much from the internet? Atleast few hours a day. What is a better source of knowledge? Whether Lord Saraswathi likes it or not Internet has become the latest carrier of the world knowledge. And so I suggested to Harini that we should definitely pay our tributes to Internet in addition to those wonderful books. She had no objections whatsoever…she is more interested in hearing how the sundal and murukku that she made tasted[I will never put our love in jeopardy by not saying the obvious!]. We added our laptop to stack of books infront of Saraswathi and I continued with my slogas. Back from the stack, this laptop now stares bright and religious infront of me with a big round sandhanam/kumkum pottu on its forehead.
So on this day of Saraswathi Pooja, may we all offer our tributes and appreciation to the world of Internet too. Long live Internet [ I can hear google sneaking in saying – ‘What is Internet without Google?’] in its mission to spread knowledge.
