You must have heard that the only culture known to India is agriculture. Similarly, the cliché – India lives in villages and villages are known for farming i.e. agriculture. There are two main crops in India, Rabi and Kharief, come urbanization with growing greed and the most important of them all; crop of Relief enters the scene. The crop of Relief has come to stay with us. India is such a large country, always there is flood, famine or earthquake in one part or the other. Relief is a high yielding crop. So remember if you are a relief crop farmer you are here to survive (vagaries of nature) and thrive (because of same vagaries) Let growers of other crops kill themselves. Yours is the cash crop in true sense of word.
India actually is a country dominated by festivals. India is a land where no less than 330 million deities reside. To venerate 330 million deities we need sufficient number of devotees. After all what is a deity without a devotee? Both owe their existence to each other. We are basically a religious lot (see Indus valley and Harappa finds) as soon as we realized that deities need sufficient number of devotees, we took it upon ourselves as our fundamental duty to procreate. Procreate, we did and in our zest created a byproduct called pandemonium. Hitherto, world champion in the field of population i.e. China also faced difficulty in keeping pace with us and retains its coveted supremacy. Very soon we will push China from its number one position and we will be hero number one. It is said when you want someone to bite the dust you give him long rope. So during last Olympics (in Athens) we looked other way when China was winning most of the gold. We are conscious, for the present our immediate and paramount duty is to humble China in the field of population. This is our core-competence area. Once we have children more than Chinese dragon, superseding China in remaining of fields will be child’s play.
India has abundance of festivals. Each day is some festival or other. Deities are not short of devotees and vice versa. With internet and electronics media, devotees have helped deities strengthen their halo.
Take for example Holi, a fascinating festival indeed. Hooch on Holi is the in thing. You may go in for grease paint and literally paint the town red…that is Holi. You can be Bond…James Bond and go for the ‘kill’ that is painting the faces of all Bhabhijis of your ‘society’. That is what I call ‘license to kill’. Water filled balloons fly everywhere. Medicos particularly skin and eye-specialists make hay while the sun of Holi shines, thanks to adulterated, cheap color, paint you use. People embrace each other on Holi, bigger the benefactor or promoter of nuisance value, longer is the duration of the bear hug. Children celebrate Holi with childlike gaiety while adult celebrate Holi with childish prank. Media blares hourly report that entire nation is celebrating Holi . The leaders i.e. political,( remaining varieties are extinct in India) do not play Holi publicly…simple due to security reasons. Play they must, so they sprinkle color and discolor their own security guards, who don’t protest and appear to be enjoying. Evenings are reserved for visiting boss’s house so that even if boss overlooked you during the hullabaloo of day he should not miss you in the evening and should mentally mark you ‘P’ in his BOF (Book Of Favorites ) P for presence..no..no..P for polish. You see Holi falls in the month of March..a crucial month when a bureaucrat’s Annual Confidential Report is filled.
About Diwali lesser said better it is. It is our All India Pollution Day. Lest you raise bogey of pollution, it is publicized by Diwali die-hard fans that the smoke and poisonous fumes emanating from crackers kill the mosquitoes and other pests. Crackers are manufactured in Sivakashi, Tamilnadu by child labors who live in sub-human conditions. Scores of these children get killed every Diwali due to fire caused by negligence. In India, thanks to terrorists, one doesn’t have to wait till Diwali to witness bomb explosions. Compared to power packed RDX of terrorists, Diwali bombs appear childish and sound as incoherent as independent candidates in Assembly elections.
Diwali is our national GBM. General Body Meeting…no. Gambling Bribing... Merrymaking. It is an official festival of openly gambling, bribing and getting bribed. People gamble and drink with total ‘openness’, our version of glasnost and perestroika .Diwali has special significance for traders. Every Diwali they punctually spin the web of ‘SALE’. Customers too are naïve enough to walk into their trap Diwali after Diwali. They make a beeline for shops displaying ‘SALE ‘signboards. More often than not these sales are just gimmicks and another way of marketing unmarketable goods. Strangely, I find both buyers and sellers to be happy and gay. Shopkeepers succeed in clearance of their outdated, inferior goods saving on inventory cost while customers are happy buying things they don’t actually need. Fire brigades do overtime during Diwali as fire break outs are very common. Fire tenders are in demand as much as the bold, beautiful but poor cine actresses after the movie ‘Fire’ why poor… because however, massive the budget of film may be, poor actress gets to wear only tatters.
Eid is of two kinds, sweet one and non-vegetarian. A snap is fondly displayed by every newspaper Eid after Eid. A Hindu boy and a Muslim boy hugging each other like long lost brothers, facing camera and smiling ear to ear. People wear new clothes. Television channels air period films with strong urdu bias like Bahu Begum, Taj Mahal .Any foreigner watching Bollywood film is bound to carry entirely wrong impression such as --India is a happy-go-lucky country. Average Indian is busy either romancing or singing love songs. Falling in love, singing, dancing is customary in every household. An Indian is well versed in dancing, knows how to play almost any musical instrument and sings at the slightest provocation. Little do they know that in Bollywood even ‘Bhagwan’ is forgotten and left to die unnoticed, unsung in abject poverty.
Last but not the least is Christmas. We observe Christmas with greater fervor, fever and festivity than in Vatican City. We are ‘game’ for any festival which promises and encourages little bonhomie. We are true seculars when it comes to eating, drinking and merrymaking. Starting from Christmas. new year the chain of sending greeting cards continues throughout the year. Thanks to globalization we have greeting cards for about every occasion under the sun. The drinking, merrymaking which sets in with x mas/new year goes on throughout the year. One has to burn in second half whatever one has earned in first half of the year. All the market forces persuade you to do so. After that you are left with little option but to fall in the trap of modern day Shylocks ever eager to home-deliver loans and later claim their share of flesh.
We have been celebrating these festivals since time immemorial.Every year millions of Ravanas (symbol of evil ) are burnt but their birth rate is several times higher than their death rate, hence, their number is swelling like never before. If Diwali, Eid, Xmas, Holi all are harbinger of compassion and harmony between man and man then why there is so much mistrust and hatred between man and man.
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