Charms of Indian Festivals

Our Indian festivals have always amused me, and the way they are woven with each other in a sequence, always had been very mystical for me.I always used to wonder why holi comes in summers and dipawali in winters, or why we do not celebrate all festivals in same manner with same cuisine. My favorite pass time was asking loads of questions to my mother, father and Grandfather regarding all these rituals. Still lots of queries are unanswered but I will like to conclude few things in this article from my observations since childhood. All the festivals are kind of a 365 days story for me with every year entirely new but similar at the same time. I will call it “ story of a year “.

Our new year start in Chaitra masa which we celebrate on the day of Holi in phalgun masa . To have a colour full start we have introduced the tradition of playing with colours. The dried weeds/shrubs are cut and burn as a part of Holika Dahan which symbolizes “ Burai ka naash “. The burning of those weeds makes environment bacteria free and pure. We also have a tradition of putting ubtan before Holika and burning the remains while Holika Dahan. Which keeps us in practice of cleaning our selves and gives us realization of burning the layer of dirt we deposit every year in our mind of hatred and other evil things. forgetting all grudges we play colours on holi. Then their is a tradition of going to our near and dear ones to meet, at least people in their busy life get a reason to meet and celebrate together. Making special sweet of Holi called Guzhia keeps the knowledge of the cuisine alive and gets transmitted generation to generation.

After Holi comes the other major festival in the month of

Bhadrapada called Rakshabandhan. It is a festival of brother and sister. It keeps the relationship between brother and sister alive. Sister pray for the well being of there brother, they promise to take care of their sisters life long. The festival keeps the feeling alive. The celebration brings people together. The tying of the Rakshabandhan on brother’s hand give him a feeling of there lives tied with each other by god as brother and sister.

In karttika masa comes karwachauth. This is a fasting come festival celebrated by all married women for their husbands. Its pooja is again done with a story telling which tells the importance of relationship between a husband and wife and how both compliment each other. The woman prays for husbands safety in our tradition and the husband takes care of his wife. The ceremony of husband feeding wife after her full day fast gives them the realization that they will need each other for there whole life and should celebrate together. The use of new rice for pooja is indication of the second harvest of rice.

The other festival in the same season is Ramnavami when the birth of Lord Rama is celebrated. At that time the whole epic Ramayana is recited in different forms and the tradition gets transferred from generation to generation. On the last day Ravan’s puppet is burnt to give message of “ Burai par achcahi ki vijay” i.e. irrespective of power the good conquers bad is the message. The practice of Ramlila keeps the old stage art culture of India alive. Also the craft of making puppets and stage for the same.

After that comes Dipawali which brings lots of joy of

celebration.In the month of Dipawali festival people take big decision, purchase properties etc as they consider the month auspicious. On the occasion of dipawali people clean there each tit bit of house and make it look new again. Lots of sweets are prepared. Tradition of making rangoli inviting Goddess lakshmi and doing lakshmi and Ganesh pooja are part of the dipawali celebration. As said that Lord Rama returned to Ayodhya on the day of Dipawali so people light up their homes with diyas and celebrate his victory. The whole festivals again brings people together.

Then comes Makarsankranti in the Magh masa which is celebrated on the occasion of new harvest. People pray Sun God on the occasion. Taking bath early morning and giving “arg” to Sun God is a important part of the festival. After that meal is prepared with the new rice and people eat that. Also tradition of flying kites on that day is very famous. The whole environment seems refreshing.

Again we wait for new holi, rakshabandhan etc. like this the whole year goes in hand from one festival to another. There are many other “vratas” and “tyoharas” which I have not covered here. But the Indian Festivals are major part of our Indian culture and tradition which keeps them alive in us. Apart from festivals there are lots of rituals which are like one time festivals, they are marriage, upanayan sanskar, janeyu sanskar etc. The article is in context with the festivals I have celebrated since my childhood, there are many more which I am aware of and have not covered here but all of them are again like a story of year for me.

random source of ideas

Well while generating ideas for my design project I recalled this story. Long back when I was in school I don't remember which class exactly, but ya I do remember my mode of transportation. It was a three wheeler mechanical rickshaw with a wooden bench tied to the rickshaw puller's seat facing the other seat of rickshaw. It used to be full with students few sitting, and other running on the road giving dhakka to the rickshaw as it used to be overflown with heads of different ages studying in different class but of same school.

Forgot to tell the name of my school. It is Canossa Convent School ( Girls school and that to convent ) in Faizabad City. Once in our school this big movement occurred, that all the girls should start putting oil in there hair and make two plaits, those with small hair make two ponytails. Do whatever, but look bad, was what they wanted to convey. As our so called sisters(convent teachers) were pissed off finding more boys standing outside the girls school than girls after the school got over :-).

The rule was made such that who so ever will not follow the instruction will be made bald in front of the whole school. This became a big topic of discussion in our school as well as on rickshaw.

So the discussion started like this that if we don't follow the rule then all the Cannocian gals will go bald. As my school was considered as one of the fashion statement school so we concluded that after seeing the bald girls from our school probably other school gals will also start doing the same. And if this chain becomes even bigger, then there will be lots of people going bald in our country or may be in the whole world (forgive all of us for the kiddish imagination) :-).

And then design ideas started pouring in. What will be done with so many hairs? Somebody said baskets can be made out of it, rope, cushions, textile, upholstery, caps, mats, rolling shades for windows, bags and what not. I don't remember all of them but there was more than 100 ideas. We even discussed that there will be so many varieties of hairs and each will cost different. New industries will start setting up for hair products. Well this was not the end, what all new fashion and accessories can come up for bald community was also discussed. I regret that i don't remember the full conversation.

But that day we laughed all the way back to our home contributing new innovative ideas. It was a perfect group idea generation session which we do now to generate ideas :-)

Sorry to the people who found it ridiculous and those who enjoyed thanx a lot :-)

Anecdote

One childhood story I want to share which is my all time favorite. Once in my summer holidays when I was in 5th std I went to my village Benipur with my family. At that time we all cousins used to get together for the holidays and have fun. My younger sister beauty, my cousin brother Prince Bhaiya and I used to play together. We have a big mango orchard in Benipur but it needs to be taken care of when magoes are there or else we will not get any. So my Grandpa used to assign all of us some duties to take care of the place and mangoes.

All of us used to play whole day there, cricket, football, tree game, gulli danda and what not. Even Grandpa used to stay there whole day with us telling us stories and other facts for our knowledge.

So one day when my Grandpa left for his dinner to home and asked us to stay on the road outside the orchard on the khatia till the time he comes back, three of us agreed and started talking.

Suddenly an idea came in our mind, to make Mahua leaf plates and to eat dinner in that. It was dark by then. We had one Mahua tree near by, but it was not ours. It was of our neighbours. We decided to pluck leaves from that and make our plates. But the branches of tree were high so we asked our brother who was eldest and tallest of all, to jump and catch hold of a branch and tilt it down so that me and my sister can pluck the leaves.

As soon as he did that the branch cracked with a sound. Our neighbour who was a furious old lady shouted. We got scared and picked up the leaves and hid them in the bushes near by and went and sat on the cot as if we were not aware of anything. She came to us and asked who did that. Then suddenly I started fake crying and said even we dont know got scared as we have heard that one ghost lives inside the well which is near the Mahua tree. Then she said no need to get scared and sat with us reciting story till our Grandpa came. As soon as she left we collected the leaves we had plucked and left for home, made plates out of it and ate in those plate that night.

Nobody knew the story except three of us. I still miss those great days spent in my village.

what it is all about ?

This blog reflects my interests. May be not in order but the blog will contain stories related to things I do and like