#IndiaWaliDiwali : No to Victimhood

New Delhi, Oct 26: "May your victimhood mindset gets cleaned away!" is my greeting to me and my loved ones this Diwali.

We clean up our houses, get rid of old unnecessary stuff and buy new utility items for ourselves and good gifts for friends , wrap it up with sweets and consume. This is how we have been celebrating Diwali all these years. Then, sitting in my 'just now' inaugurated office, I saw trending #IndiaWaliDiwali and got thinking for its meaning in personal life.

Getting rid of the mental cobwebs of "I am a victim of ...." is perhaps the best way to mark the celebrations this year.

Great saints of India have repeatedly declared "जन्तूनां नरजन्म दुर्लभं" i.e. of all births that of a human being is rare to obtain. Even one who is bereft of existence of soul can appreciate that humans are top of the food-chain and really the lucky ones to live on this planet. Yet we love to idle our time away contemplating and whining about how wrong things have happened to 'poor me'.

No one is denying the ills happening in the world due to greed, anger and hate, and they should be stopped. Yet, in personal live, living with the victim mindset doesn't get one anywhere. One needs to realize the rarity of human birth and get going to improve the situation. We rather keep living on with complexities of things we can't change like my skin colour/ height/ place of birth/ family of birth etc are causing all the grief in my life.

"उद्धरेत् आत्मना आत्मानं" i.e. one needs to lift oneself by one's own efforts. So, this Diwali, I wish you "Count your many blessings Lord has done" and follow the age-old Indian dictum of "उत्तिष्ठत जाग्रत प्राप्य वरान्निबोधत", well, I leave it to you to search the meaning of this last one and read upon. Happy Diwali! #IndiaWaliDiwali

(Author is Head of PBNS (Digital arm of India's public sector broadcaster, Prasar Bharati) and views are personal.)