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 Kharif,
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 retain 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 the
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, superceding 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 paint the faces of all Bhabhijis of your ‘society’. That is what
I call ‘ licence 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 hullaboo 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 brigade
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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