My City of Joy - Wake Up and Let the Candle Glow Brighter!

It feels like something's amiss in this land far far away as the Goddess of Power lands across the seas in my childhood "City of Joy"! There's this nostalgia, shimmering with thoughts of bygone days, when my family and I would wander, all decked up with pompous paraphernalia, to live up to the color and splendor of the festival. Yes! It's "Durga Puja" again, everything remains the same, the same enthusiasm, the same ardor, the same beatific beauty permeating the land, enchanted souls scurrying about the streets of Calcutta - but this time, I have those scenes playing wildly in my mind's eye. Aah! but then again, it's as if it's a blessing in disguise because now I can paint the colors of the festival with my exclusive graphiti strokes to finesse the nuances of the festive season - "nah! a little bit tangerine there, a little mellow yellow here, a little more of the azure tint in the sky, nope! don't rain - make it bright and warm" - making the people of my faraway land happier and brighter!

Well, there's more to this festival than the religious fervor of the people, it is a festival of triumph of good over evil, it is a festival of bliss, a festival of prosperity and peace! Think of all the dreams you dreamt, but couldn't quite transform to reality and in your innocent, earnest way ask Her to give you Her touch, and yes! She will - She will sprinkle over you a potion to cast aside that despondent drudgery of mundane life and replace it with sparkling success. How? Is it magic, no! it is that glimmer of hope that faith brings to people. Yes! you let that little prayer of hope slip by your soul, when all's going the way it was not meant to! Yes, you wrap that little parcel of unachieved dreams to heaven and seal it with cherubic hopes and dreams and let the charm work! It's with these little glittering inklings of faith and hope that we grow up; they come in different colors and flavors ... and when all's going awry - that's what you live for, the hope to let things shape up the way you want them to, the faith in what that little you within you is telling you - Move! March Forward! I am there with you!!

Let this world of ours share that faith and that passion to achieve, that passion to do good, that passion to live and let live, to love and let love!