Today is Sri Rama Navami and it is celebrated to commemorate the birth of Lord Rama, the seventh avatar of Lord Vishnu, who was born on the ninth day (Navami) of the Chaitra month to King Dasharatha and Queen Kausalya in Ayodhya. It celebrates the victory of righteousness (dharma) over evil and honors the God for all the ideals that he stood for. Growing up Lord Rama was my favourite God (yes we Hindus are very much allowed to have our Ishtadevatas), the story of the epic Ramayana had a lot to do with the like, I just couldn’t wrap my head over Mahabharata, and Lord Ganesha came a close second, but as I grew up my allegiance greatly moved to Goddess Lakshmi, for firstly she is a woman and it generally made me feel more close and hence love this deeply venerated Hindu Goddess. Diwali, the festival of light, when Goddess Lakshmi visits us has always been my favourite festival, it is also the day when Lord Rama returns to his capital Ayodhya. The festivities galore it always lit up the spark in my eye.
While the premise of Lord Rama remains the same, the epitome of good over evil, through his life story in the epic Ramayana he has displayed what all of us would perhaps want to embody but then the part after triumphing on the evil Ravana was not really taught to us all as children, the spurning of his wife Sita and the birth of the twins culminating with Sita being taken into the earth were harsher episodes in the story of Ramayana, at the end of the day it is all justified though and Lord Rama is a God, worshipped with Sita, Lakshmana and Hanuman. The greater good notwithstanding. The search for being good and being happy is not an end goal, but a hedonistic being that serves us just as much as serving the society, we feel good when we look good, do good and be good, there isn’t an iota of doubt about it. But though being the good girl was on my mind, now I also want to be the good-to-myself-girl and so could you!
Vedasri Siddamsetty 