Rethink Mahashivratri celebrations: Dumping the age old traditions

Mahashivratri, a festival that celebrates the wedding of Lord Shiva and Parvati has been celebrated enthusiastically all over the world with the Shiva devotees. The long queues of devotees and the offerings for Lord Shiva are prevelant in every temple on this auspicious day as it marks a very positive day in Hindu Calendar.

The offerings for the Lord ranges from Bhang-Dhatura to flowers to milk to water.

As we were offering these to Shiva as a custom according to our traditions, a thought crossed my mind: what if we offered this much milk and fruits to the unpriveleged section of the society? Won't God be happy with this act? Because as we offered thousands of litres of milk to the Lord today, most of that went down the drain. We could have fed so many poor with this milk but instead we chose to offer that to the stone idol who hasn't even asked us to do so.

Another thought that hit me was: why today a drug labelled as bhang is openly being distributed as a gift of God all around the temples in the form of milk or fritters? Yes, in our mythology, bhang or Cannabis is associated with Lord Shiva but isn't it also labelled as a drug according to our law system?

Why doesn't Indian society stand with one thought instead of being hypocritical in this case? If Cannabis is good and is served by our Gods then why not delegalize it or if it's bad for our society (as you could see many people today being  under the influence and causing a ruckus).

We should as Indian society make up our minds how we need to celebrate the Indian festivals. As according to the traditions which were passed down by generations that we have been following, it seems it is not suitable for the century that we are living in as the things have changed since these old age traditions and we need to rethink the way we celebrate Mahashivratri.

Ideation By Mayank Chadha