I thank Pandit Charranlall Nandalall for an inspiring and educational commentary on Karthik (Chronicle Nov 22). I am also pleased to read the news article on people observing Karthik (tirth or teerath) in Guyana. In New York, Guyanese and other Hindus also celebrated the festival with fasting and performing special prayers on Sunday at the mandirs and on the beaches. In fact, Guyanese celebrated Kartik on several weekends in NY by conducting pooja on the beach but unlike in Guyana, they don’t bathe in the ocean which is very cold.
On Karthik Snaan, people go to the rivers or oceans to do pujas and take a bath (snaan). It is the general belief that one’s sins or bad karmas are washed away or forgiven when performing this ritual with the deity “Ganga Mai” being worshipped at the festival.  It is believed that the Goddess of water, Ganga Mai, came unto the earth on the day and so Hindus seek her blessings by performing special prayers devoted to her. Kartik is a time to cleanse oneself and to ensure that something is given back to the goddess of the oceans and seas. This something should be respect for the bodies of water on which we depend for our survival.
The observance of Kartik is important, especially at a time when the sea seems to be reclaiming land threatening human’s very existence with “global warming”.  The festival of Karthik should be used as an educational lesson for people to do everything to protect and purify the environment and stop polluting (dumping refuse into) our various bodies of water. The pollution blocks the flow of water endangering our very lives with flooding. And the impurities dumped in water make it unfit for use.
In New York, worshippers immersed their legs in the chilly water and prayed and chanted special mantras (verses from the holy scriptures), sang bhajans (spiritual songs), made offerings (fruits and mohanbhog) and conducted puja (burning incense and other paraphernalia) as part of Kartik celebrations. Other offerings include chaoor (rice), perfume and clothes for Ganga-ji.  There was also the offering of food. Paper plates filled with food and a variety of fruits scattered on the beach. The puja began with purification of the ground and the environment and offerings to the Goddess, and culminated with aartee or waving of the sacred light of the diya. At the end of the puja, all of the offering were placed on a piece of cloth and released into the water. The significance of the ritual is that the devotee is feeding the earth back everything that comes from the earth.
The cold water kept many away from taking a full bath as they normally would do in Guyana. After puja, people had bhojan as they do in Guyana.