You know its festival time when CoolDeep Thought comes across your notification and may be your mind, while it might be reducing the fun for a lot many of you, ‘life is like that, deal with it !’. 14th January is among the very few festivals in India, celebrated on a fixed date of English calendar. The serendipity of all these festivals falling on this day are actually double twins with many half brothers and sisters. Today and the night before celebrate the harvest of Kharif crop and thus prosperity in the form of different festivals across the country celebrating the harvest . Differing in their ways with the only common thing being that unfailingly they celebrate. Celebration in the name of name of Lohri, Makar-Sankranti, Guddi-Parva (Gujrat) or the very Tamilian ‘Pongal’. But my food has been coming from the kitchen/mess and thus I need not celebrate the sickle, slitting the throat of a paddy crop somewhere on the right or left of a highway. And thus I try to discover what can it mean to people like us. People who observe the only ritual on every festival of visiting Shopping Malls or just ‘Hanging Out’.
Other than slitting the throat of a plant which I am sure by the books of some ‘Oh..so Eco-Freindly, Nature Lover !’, somebody or the other is born on this day and thus can be the birthday of someone, you might have known. You got it right ! but i’ll deny that fact and camouflage it wait another that its the birthday of Hindu Calendar and not the daughter of someone who shared the name of an Ex-PM. But you cannot have so many new years and thus the importance of this day is to mark of the arrival of warmer days and not having to wear sweaters and body warmer (applies if you are from colder north). For studious types it signifies the arrival of the finest days when they would slog even harder and not only reap the dividends but root out the whole syllabus sapling from the proverbial pool of knowledge and restoring its life in the flower pot of examination sheet.
But I am not one of those who ever lost sleep over syllabus. One ‘jhapki’ and that’s it! (the occasions when I broke my vow simply don’t count, my Blog-my Bragg !). For lovers most of whom end up being losers as they never strive for things everybody else does and wrongly branded loners, the day signifies the last lap in the run up to St Valentine’s Day. I cannot agree more with myself when I said in my FB update that ‘Lohri can be as much about celebrating the crop harvest as about proverbial celebration of harvesting your Love Crop, which you hope will be laden with fruits on St. Valentine’s Day. Having put Pampering Fertilizers (read Flirt) & Showering Compliments all year long. May be you could not say, may be you never will and are likely to remain silent even on V Day but your silence would speak loud n clear !’. Or even worse she has been somebody else’s valentine for years or adding insult to the injury, says ‘Yes !! (y) :D <3 ;)’ to somebody else, and you start hating all the imaginary emoticons that across your mind with that thought. After all they are no Unclaimed Territory that u reach first and plant your flag & by planting I meant only literally ;) (so rest that dirty thought) . If anything, they are like the ports with vast international waters around them called socialization. Everyone should be allowed to sail, irrespective of TSD( Time Speed or Distance/Direction) without branding their course illicit-ous because which ship will call port is totally their discretion .But who cares !, while some may, I do not. One cannot like or have a crush only if the other person meets the critical criterion of being single. And thus there was another update and I agree even more to this ‘Its romantic to dance with a girl in dim light & its Lohri when you dance with a lot many, going round in a circle, throwing Puffed Rice, Popcorn n Munchies into d bonfire which flirt-ily illuminates and hides their faces in turns as if acting like a scarf to save from your harmful X-ray vision eyes, putting the spot light on different ‘Show Stoppers’ and making your heart skip a beat & pick a glass’. Thus we see how the Up-Date-errrr.. tries to bring out the romantic side of otherwise boring and mundane activity like a festival dedicated to harvesting. I mean as long as its not served on my plate, how it matters if it was harvested or is still standing. This will land me in a lot of disagreement with a lot many and probably thats what I want, being at the centre of controversy. It gets you the eyeballs.
If that is the scenario in North, the Hindi heartland calls it Makar-Sankranti and celebrates by eating Til-Kut . Til(sesame seeds),black and white when binded together with fevicol by Kareena Kapoor becomes Tilkut. That is not true at all and jiggery is used in the edible version by the womenfolk of the family or ‘Panditji Mithaiwale’ but yes Kareena binds men together like fevicol,the little, black and white. Forget Kareena, she is not gettable and does not even have a mole. Mole, a ‘til’ is what beats even ‘tilkut’ this season. It occupies your imagination, even if its not where it suits the best, to the right or left of upperlip. These are not the things that go into any recipe prepared on this day or a blog written for it and its hormones which are to blame for this predicament and are getting hyper, decide what keys you punch or the course hereafter which would follow the Ganges. A little eastward and you reach PaschimBanga or the earstwhile West Bengal, the innovator of Misti-Dohi (Sweet Curd). While my place has a tradition of eating flattened rice with not so Misti-Dohi as it would involve getting in IPR infringement issues with the Mamata Di herself and who wants that !. So we make it stealthily. Heard a lot about their sweet dishes but don’t know exactly how the bongs celebrate it. To our rescue there is always Google so please DIY !.
Sorry about the slip of tongue which keeps wagering out of control in the direction of good food unfailingly. So our (me) lover in this part of the country keeps his faith in controlled fermentation (controlled flirtation) and waits for the the V day. To make good all the loss of dairy delicacy, he names her ‘Misty’ if not Shona (dairy analogy better be put to rest right there! ) to keep reminding himself how much is riding on the next 31 days to come, and the hurdles along the way.
East or West, the same storyline is fitted into a different plot. The tried and tested ‘peench ladana’(enatanglement) on Guddi-Parv in Gujrat goes hand in hand along with ‘Nain Ladana’ ,and many a Kite goes down while doing this, literally and figuratively. But then everything that fly’s in sky is not meant to land successfully, a living-dead example of this is Kingfisher & the movie Kites. Not many of you might be knowing that Kingfisher went down because they were being consistently cursed for employing boyfriends of peoples crush and girls thought that it was Nana Patekar in Kites, the movie. So what did kids like me did? I was a kid back then and there, and not very good at either ‘Nain’ or ‘Pench’ and thus did what any enterprising Gujrati would do, collect the Kites which have fallen and might have sold them as well. The better part was that these Kites came with ‘Strings Attached’ and thus adding cherry to the cake. Before you judge me, let me say this in my defence ‘I was young and Candy’s were too good to resist !’. Somebody elses ‘Kai Po Che’(gujrati meaning ‘I have cut’) became so awaited and a music to the ears as the movie with the same name and based on Chetan’s 3 Mistakes of My Life is. The sky should always be open safe as well, why should a fighter patangbaaz or for that matter Kinfisher Pilot should take down an innocent cycle-rider : )
Down south, its celebrated over 4 days with the most prominent one being Pongal. Beginning with Bhogi when you burn very old stuff which may refer to relationships turned awry and thus looking up to the future which is here and now in only 31 days. The second day is dedicated to worshipping the Sun god, so that things remain bright and sunny and no gloomy dark cloud hover your endeavour. But then the thought of ZNMD( Zindagi Naa Mileegi Dobaara) strikes chord and our lover tries to observe life from close proximity of death by taming the bull of bearish thoughts on Jallikattu. And last but not the least, he goes on an outing to live life having understood the value of life. Having said and written that, I’ll end it here as even I have figured out what I am not going to do and its only 31 days to go. Goodbye :)
Claimer : The blogger expresses personal feelings for the reader, who should give try to understand what he is trying to say as he can’t make it more obvious. It’s on purpose and meant to impress and all characters are portrayals are real him, somebody or the other(living and lovely).
Apology : Sorry about the blog in which I said, 007 din’t make out in Skyfall, in a way he did but you will agree that he is getting older and has cut down on his habits :P
