Each festival poses a question before me: Why should I
celebrate it? Each time I express certain reservations, people very close to me
ask why I am so negative about things. Sometimes facebook utterances are quite
fleeting yet they generate some sort of debate while profound statements get
ignored. Especially, if the comments are on Indian festivals or international
festivals, and if they tinge with some kind of despair and dejection, people
take it for absolute negativism. There must be people who think about me as
someone seeking attention through difference. There was a time when I used to
indulge in debate. Now I do not feel the need of debating such issues. But in
the case of festivals, I think I need to explain some of my oppositional
positions; I am not hard pressed to explain it to anybody else but I feel that
I need to make it clear to myself.
Have I not celebrated festivals? Yes, I have. When I was a
child I was enthusiastic to celebrate festivals typical to Kerala, where I was
born and brought up. Onam was one special festival; it was the celebration of
the annual visit of the benevolent king, Mahabali, who was sent to the
netherworlds by Vamana, one of the ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu. Mahabali
was a very benevolent king though he was an asura (demon). He ruled the land of
Kerala with sense of equanimity. ‘Maveli Naadu Vaneedum Kaalam, Maanusharellam
onnu pole, kallavumilla chatiyummilla, ellolamilla polivachanma, kallapparayum
cherunazhiyum, kallattharangal mattonnumilla’- During the reign of Mahabali,
All subjects are alike, No theft, No cheating, None says a word of falsehood.
No tricky measurements, no fooling vessals, No such falsities around- A picture
of ideal rule. Why did the devas send exiled him to the underworld?
I had not asked this question when I was a child. Like many
unquestioning subjects, I too welcome Mahabali for ten days and revelled in
feasts. Onam was quite welcoming for a child like me because it heralded a ten
days off from school, visits of relatives, exchanges of gifts, new clothes,
games, plays, processions, boat races, general revelries and good food. These
provisions were enjoyed and the cultural side of it were amply consumed without
any ideological questioning. ‘Kaanam vittum Onam Unnanam’- Even by pawning your
property, you should celebrate Onam- is another maxim that was and is still prevalent
in Kerala. I started having doubts about Onam as I started learning and seeing
the subtexts of this maxim. One has to do anything to celebrate Onam. You could
sell your property or pawn your jewellery only to celebrate Onam. It was the
beginning of commercialization of a commemorative festival. People who had
lived the agricultural economy came out to buy their annual provisions of some
luxuries including some new clothes and bangles from the village fairs during
the Onam days. Slowly it became a compulsory shopping festival. I stopped
celebrating Onam almost twenty years before. Onam is a cultural memory for me
and it will remain like that so long as I live. The same fate has happened to
Christmas and Eid. In India commercialization of Eid is not so apparent as we
just do not want to align with Islam in a larger fashion, however tolerant we pretend
to be.
‘Onam Pirannalum Unni Pirannaalum Koranu Kanji Kumbilil
Thanne’- Whether it is Onam or the birth of his own child, Koran (the working
class man) drinks his porridge from a leaf cone- is another maxim that made me
think as I grew up. During Onam everyone eats feast on plantain leaves. Only
the upper class and the upper caste, naturally affluent socially and
financially had the capacity to eat a full meal on a plantain leaf throughout the
year. Hence, eating on plantain leaf during the ten days of Onam became
somewhat emblematic of temporal prosperity and equality. But what about the
working class man or woman? S/he, even during the Onam days eats his food from
a leaf cone. A cone made out of jackfruit leaf or any other flexible leaf shows
the location where the food is served (to the menial class), the dignity or
lack of it attributed to such serving and the kind of caste/class markings. The
maxim says that even on the Onam day, the menial class remains menial class.
This has not changed even today. I doubt festivals because of it. Onam was my
learning ground and I could apply my findings in any festivals celebrated in
India.
Let me recount some everyday examples related to these
festivals. Yesterday, like many other people I too stood in front of an ATM
counter in Faridabad. One old Sardarji came out of the air-conditioned cabin
that dispenses money from the phallic machines, and he was absolutely confused.
He had taken out Rs.20000/- from his account and while making a second
transaction, the machine conked off. The man was in full belief that his money
had been eaten up the machine or it would later be taken away by the security
man there. He approached him. One of the biggest ironies that we see today in
India is the presence of impoverished security guards who man ATMs, bungalows,
private properties, housing colonies and so on. They come from somewhere in
their rickety cycles and go back to that somewhere. The security man at the ATM
counter sees people coming taking out notes smelling mint and carrying the
smiles of Mahatma Gandhi but he never gets a chance to take his money out of
the machine that he guards.
This old security guard tried to convince the old Sardarji
saying that the machine would not eat up his money. Unconvinced, Sardarji told
him that he had a total of Rs.32000/- in his account and as he had already
taken out Rs.20000/- there should be a balance of Rs.12000/- there. In the
commotion the man even forgot to keep the money he had just taken out, into his
pocket. He was lamenting that with each failed transaction his Rs.20/- would be
cut as service charge. Finally he once again entered the room and with the help
of the security guard took out the balance money, leaving Rs.2000/- in his
account. He was talking about Diwali and the things that he was supposed to do
with that money. I found it absolutely absurd. A man pulling out all his money
from his account just to buy crackers and sweets. I understand that the social
norms teach us to perform our duties in certain ways. But on whose cost and on
what cost? Personal happiness and a sense of security.
I see so many worried faces in the metro coaches. They all
carry sweet packets and gift packets covered in gilt papers as if they are
their life; the dear life. You know something, how do you feel when you are
just the receiver of gifts not the giver? That is the worry and shame that I
see in many faces in the metro coach. These packets have been given to them by
their superiors. Friends hardly give gifts to each other. People carry
identical packets; one could even see that which sweet company has made the maximum
profit this year by selling packet sweets. As the train journey crosses its
half course, confidence comes back to their faces. They have forgotten the
receiving part. Now they are heading towards their homes and there they are the
givers. To the expectant children, old parents, dear wife and other relatives,
you are going to the play the role of the giver. You have earned these packets
by toiling for three hundred and sixty five days. Now you carry these packets
with pride and go home. That is festival. Whenever I see the college going
children with their expensive mobile phones in metro coaches, I remember only
the worried faces of their parents and the furrows that appear in their
foreheads when they attend their calls in a local handset procured for a paltry
sum of Rs.900/- because it comes from China.
The boys who look like thugs from any angle, this evening
behave like polite politicians. Yes, they are politicians and businessmen for a
few days. The long stretch where the government has allowed selling of crackers
is now filled with a jostling crowd. The boys entice you to their stalls. They call
out, ‘Sir, this is original. We sell only Koel brand’. I found it a bit odd. I
have never heard somebody insisting on the brand of crackers. The common belief
is that all these crackers and sparklers come from Sivakasi factories where
small children and women work day and night in sweatshops and so many PhD
theses are used for preparing the ‘gunds’, known as diwali bombs in the north.
Most of the crackers need papers as raw material; and I believe that academic
research papers, assignments and unsold books must be contributing a lot to
this industry. (Recently, in Ahmedabad, I saw one exhibition of a Japanese
artist who has carved sculptures out books. Curiosity led me to look at the
spine of the books and found that this was a book on Ahmedabad city written by
a local scholar. I thought it was good for the artist as raw material and a
indelible shame for the author as the world came to know that the majority of
the copies published remained in some storage space till the artist found them
good to carve!).
‘Koel Brand’ does not sound as attractive as Tag Heuer.
Later on I realized that the emphasis on brand has a lot to do with a distorted
idea of nationalism. What they want to tell the customers is that they are not
selling Chinese crackers. Chinese wears have found an easy market in India as
they are cheap and more stylish. My friend in Mumbai tells me that most of the
Ganesh idols used for the illustrious Ganpati Festival there come from China;
Mumbai Ganesh fans are happy with cheap but beautiful Ganesh idols. I think
Bengalis still resist the Chinese project as their Kumartali has enough
expertise and cheap labour to produce as many as Durgas for their ‘Pujo’
festival. Suddenly Chinese products fell out of grace because despite the good
market they have found in India, the Chinese still want a few acres of land
from India. They make incursions and encroachments at the North-Eastern border
of India, also at the extreme North. Despite the bilateral negotiations, they
attack Indian soldiers. Suddenly, we became aware of the fact that we are
buying Chinese products and the Chinese in fact are attacking us militarily.
When the cracker selling boys say that they sell ‘Koel Brand’ I realize that
for the last few years they too were selling Chinese products masquerading as Indian
brands.
I do not preach against festivals. I do not keep a negative
feel about festivals. But I have my own logical and emotional reasons to keep
myself away from these festivals where money and opulence is extravagantly
flaunted, places are littered and in the name of social integrations boundaries
are created, properties are encroached, women are teased and molested and many
are brought into permanent poverty. Festivals do not create poverty but they
contribute to it. The pro-festival people may say that festivals provide a lot
of jobs to a lot of people and it runs like an industry. But I am sure that if
there are rehabilitation programs effectively implemented there would not be
any job loss due a possible lack of enthusiasm on festivals. When we say that
it would leave people devoid of jobs, we do not address so many issues
including the constant dispossession and displacement of people from their
areas of livelihood to nondescript places that do not yield anything to support
their lives. All these happen in the name of traditionally rooted way of
living, progress and development.
Today morning I saw so many young boys walking along the
streets and collecting small little crackers strewn here and there unexploded
in the previous night when people celebrated their ‘chotti diwali’. At the
other end of the street, I few kids collecting the burnt iron sticks from the
used sparklers. One of the boys had at least five hundred or more iron strings
in his hand. I was continuously talking to my son about the disparities seen in
our society and I showed them those boys who collected the leftover things from
diwali. I told my son that they too would go and sell it to the kabadi wala,
get a few rupees and instead buying their food they too would go and buy some
crackers. I asked my son to be aware of his comfortable life and the insecure
life of so many children like those boys. He asked me what could be done. I did
not have an immediate answer to that because by asking him to share whatever he
has with the others would make only a society run on charity (if everyone does
so). But I aspire for a society where everyone gets equal opportunity to live
and perform. I told him to do something as he grows up to create equal
opportunity for everyone. I do not know what an eight year old boy would make
out of that. But I am sure he would remember these words when he would be a
man.
If you ask me, what could be done? I do not have any answer.
But I find that the festivals have lost their cultural meaning. They have
become avenues to show personal might and political power. It has become a
market and seriously speaking market treats consumer also a commodity,
ruthlessly. The imaginary satisfaction of consuming things in fact creates a
commodity out of you that curiously consumes things anything given
unquestioningly. Any festival celebrated in moderate scale is welcome with a
lot of emphasis on its cultural meanings. Any festival that is celebrated for
the sake of showing power should be shunned like plague. Unfortunately most of
the festivals have become plagues. I prefer to do some sanitation job during
the epidemic and die in the process than blindly believe in my immune powers
and succumb to the disease without raising a finger.
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