Tuesday 23 October 2012

Days of Navratras & Dandiya Nights !!

  The ten day long festival of Durga Puja  marks a special status in my scheme of things. With a hint of fog , a season full of festivities slips into your world taking advantage of the musical sound generated by rain drops hitting the roof of garage. Though it could be strictly because of the geographical reasons, the hint of fog in the morning and the coolness of air gave the festival a hint of mystery and thus divinity .Suddenly you have  Diwali, Christmas , New Year Eve and the most important of them all your 'Happy Birthday' sitting in your drawing room, uninvited but a pleasant surprise you always wanted . You do your best to entertain them by an unending series of tea and pakodas. But then its your fault to have not seen the signs when its been raining and even the hideous Peacock residing in the bushes behind Amber-B,came out dancing in the rain, marking the beginning of winter in Trichy. 

   Weather apart, Durga Puja accords a very high importance in the lives of  the people in the eastern and western parts of our country, not to mention the residents of Hindi-heartland who have a habit of inviting themselves in every celebration and occasion. Having lived in all the three of them, and being away from all in  the festival is like home-sickness multiplied by three.  Yes, they organize the 'Dandiya Night' here and I would certainly go, but it cannot match the enthusiasm it used to generate at home. Everybody's  in the Hindi-heartland is busy migrating to some well lit street in one of those metros, but deep inside all of us miss the familiarity of those 'Galli's' which we called home. The narrowness of  those roads created near chaos like situation during festivals due to lack of public amenities and infrastructure, threw the already crawling traffic out of gear. The place could be labeled  happening in the sense that even petty non events made the politically opined public go into critic mode, but strangely nobody seemed to complain during pujas.

     The sleeping small city woke up from its slumber into celebration mode ,everyone including those self appointed collectors of  'Non-Government Machinery', the 'Revenue Officers' of the 'Protectors' became a part of the preparations. The ones who used to collect protection money by force and fear, would seek charity for a change. The money would go in making  different kinds of 'Pandals' and there used to be an unsaid rivalry to make the best pandal. On the tenth day, the marginalised District Collector would judge one of them as the best decorated pandal and even award a prize. Being a small town boy, you cherish all those little things in life like waiting for every holiday and the 'Fair' that came along and meant the world for the 8 year old you. Durga Puja had a greater call as it called for a bigger holiday, half of them declared by mutual understanding between the kids. The day began with waking up early and plucking flowers from others gardens if the darkness provided and if not manning the flowers in your garden. The belief of rendering the freshest and highest number of flowers to please the goddess would make sure that this exercise happened every day.Securing the flowers meant contributing to the cause, and we kids could do our little by doing it.ho . A practicing religious family meant more than fetching flowers, it required getting up early in the morning and watching the special series on Durga Puja on DD. A linguistically pre-occupied nation gulped down the series in Bengali and I am sure if they show it during the waking hours there will be fodder for linguistic wars..  And that explains the few sentences I speak in between, beyond which the language fails me.

   We watched the series acting like kids absorbed in the 'bhakti', so that the elders would let us be, all day long and then in the evening all wishes in the 'Fair' would come true.   And this would become the reason for taking up fasts as well , the other more important and obvious ones being the propensity of being offered sweets and not having to study . But little did I know that my sin is petty compared to the gourmet meal that Punjabi's indulge into during fasts,which virtually includes everything tasty. Everyone has their own way of courting god and each is equally perfect. When we were very young, father would read the Durga-Saptsati story to us and we liked it, which kid would not. Being accorded such priestly status would draw us kids also to take up reading the Durga-Shaptsati very early, though in installments compared to the single stretch reading that father would do .The little that we could take away from it was not to ever invite the ire of a women, which would be redefined later and gain a new dimension in the context of the Raas-lila by Lord Krishna.

   Shifting to Gujrat introduced me to new festivals like 'Ganapati Puja' which was celebrated at a grand scale. The change in the way they celebrated Durga Puja and called it Navratri instead,was just not acceptable, dancing in circles revolving on ones foot was not cool and only a means of  bringing dizziness. All I wanted was the 'Fair' and the daal to be cooked the normal way. Its the larger things in life that we can cope up with and adapt,the smaller ones are prone to sensitivities. Having ruined my festival all i cared is that they should leave the 'Daal' alone and not mess up with it,  which now tasted like a culinary disaster for someone from the Hindi-heartland. I was told that the 'Dandiya-Raas', as the dancing around in circles was called, was a form of dancing which eptomising the fight between Mahisasura and Goddess, and this could be precisely the reason for some strikes landing on your head. Why on earth a kid who had been brought up on overdose of emphasis on becoming a good boy, take up to being 'Mahisasura' ,aware of the fact that there were  too many pretending to be , there was no incentive to be one.

  Hormonal changes took care of the abnormal dislike of Dandiya, catalyzed by SRK movies and the girls who started looking pretty. Thus what seemed to be being 'Mahisasura', now appeared to be 'Krishna' and every girl, a Gopi. The one chance to dance with every girl in the town without even having to ask and getting turned down, appeared to be the one wish you wanted for those fasts, and fast or no fast it was granted during Navratras . It was the Indian way of meeting an imperishable source of dates which could keep you excited and interested in the next day. 'Dandiya' kept pace with the developments and became 'Disco Dandiya' ,an amalgamation of sacredness and sensitivity. 

    The new makes way for the old and catches your fancy without fail. Shifting gears from the 'Practicing Priest' style to the 'Dandiya Dancer' was so good. However,writing a blog about an activity enjoyed best by being out there  it like hitting the reverse gear straight from number 5. It did skid and has left a very bad imprint on the road of blogging. The situation could have been worse had it been in print , which could have been like being hit by the dandiya sticks of all those innumerable girls in 'Backless Cholis' , flaunting their tattos and men falling over each other to burn me for lack of a model 'Raavan'. Did u say it would still have been nice ( think again !), trust me butterfly tattoo or dragon ,its always wise not to invite the ire of a woman.   :-)

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