Lost innocence of festivals

 

The much-awaited Festival time is here. It’s that time of the year when everything seems joyful around. In India, there’s a festival every week and so you just get tired of the non-stop thing, but personally, I find Diwali to be the most magical one! There’s so much beauty and joy around, that the entire air has a festive vibe to it! What enamours me most is that the whole world seems to be illuminated and everyone has a smile on their face.

During my childhood, Diwali break for us would just be 3 days- Chhoti Diwali, Badi Diwali and Govardhan and right after that would be our final exams, usually within a week if we were unfortunate to have Diwali in November. However, the exam stress never dampened our festive spirits and we would wake up early to finish off some studying, (of course pretend to) before we got involved in the celebrations. Then, we would go up to Mom, ask her for large needles and thread and fervidly pick up marigold flowers from the garden and make garlands with it. God knows, how many flowers we butchered in the process and how many times we pricked our fingers, but eventually, the garlands made us gloat!

This would be followed by Rangoli making and I loved to make elaborate patterns. Of course, this rangoli love set in during teenage only. Prior to that, I would make the Kumaoni Aipan and ‘Laxmi ji ke paer.’ It was a belief that if you made tiny feet on the walkway leading to the temple inside home, Laxmi ji would definitely visit the house that night. Both these activities required me to be adroit as for the feet of Laxmi, I would soak ‘red geru’ in water and make a solution for the circular base on the floor and then I would soak rice and grind it to a paste for making the feet. This was the absolute traditional and preferred way of doing it, as one could just wipe it off after a few days and make fresh ones the following year. Later, I switched to making rangolis, for which I would ask my dad to bring sawdust, then dye it is various colours, spread it on newspapers to dry and finally make rangoli patterns with it.

There was an additional benefit of Diwali. Mom ensured that every Diwali and Holi, we wore absolutely new clothes. Since it used to be terribly cold on Diwali, the usual new clothes would be her famous hand-knitted sweaters. How we loved those and sported them fashionably or we thought so, as I still lack any sense of fashion!

In Kumaon, people make Laxmi ji with sugarcane every year. They make a frame of it, dress up the deity and finish off with a clay painted face. As children, we would visit all the neighbouring houses to have a look at their Laxmi and in the process, enjoy some sweets. ‘Singhal’ a spiral shaped fried savory used to be made in every household and so the target would be to hit that house first, which had the most tasteful ‘singhal.’

Being born in a Brahmin household, we had to bear with the enormously long, never ending pooja and were not allowed to touch the crackers before the pooja got over. The initial enthusiasm with which we sat at the pooja would gradually dissipate and we would start getting grumpy as the clock ticked by and we heard the increasing sounds of crackers outside. My favourite part of the pooja was a small ‘kullhad’ filled with kheel, a piece of mithai and the coins that were kept in it, that was given to us post the pooja.

Then we would rush out and watch the entire town, glittering with lights and the beauty of the town, reflecting in the lake, which majestically stands right in the centre of the town. We weren’t much of cracker kids so barring a few of our own, we would stand outside and just gaze at the fireworks. That was the pleasure of Nainital that apart from rockets and sky fireworks, you could enjoy even a ‘charkhi or anaar’ at someone’s house on the opposite hill!

That is the memory that is still life-like and vivid in my mind.

When it comes to festivals, I have started experiencing anagapesis! What used to make me delirious earlier, I no longer enjoy. I do not intend to disparage the festival, but I get a feeling that everything has become so commercialized now, that the festivals, have lost their innocent charm!

It has all become an occasion of trying to out beat the other in terms of festival shopping, price of gifts, expensive clothing, store bought sweets and a total lack of passion!

Everywhere, there is a mad rush, people making a beeline in the malls, pathetic traffic snarls and of course to top it all, NCR experiences the most horrible time of the year, when pollution levels are at an all time peak due to stubble burning and then there are these bans on fireworks because of it.

The only thing I look forward to now, is meeting friends and family but that too is slowly diminishing, owing to the erratic schedules of people. I long for the time when the festival was simple and uncomplicated. There was just love and happiness all around. You did things because you felt like doing them, not because there was a pressing need to compete with your neighbour or do something to be able to catch up with the things people did on social media.

As they say that people move back to basics sooner or later, I hope the festivals too move back to their old charm!