IT’S FESTIVAL TIME: GANESH CHATURTI
It’s festive season with Ganesh Chaturti being celebrated in amchi Mumbai. Pandals illuminated with bright colourful lights, different sizes and shapes of statues of Lord Ganesha, fragrant colourful flowers adorned everywhere – it’s an arresting sight indeed! People everywhere crowding for darshan, puja and enjoying every moment of the week long festive season in joyous celebration, is such a wonderful feeling!
It also reminds me of the beautiful time I have had, during my childhood with friends. Time has changed drastically and today when I look back – I strongly feel that the soul of the festival is totally missing. Everything has become so-so commercial in today’s life. Life was so much wonderful when we were kids – undying enthusiasm, innocence, pure joy and unity were the main ingredients of every festival. In today’s time these things are missing in totality. We are to be blamed for the lapse but then today’s fast paced life has indeed taken a toll on human bonding.
I still remember the passion we had for a festival to arrive almost a month before, preparing and counting each day – day in and day out with great enthusiasm looking at the calendar every single day. The never ending lump in our throats, collecting various props (toys etc) and showing off them with great pride – used to be the ambience in each and every colony. As the day approaches nearer, the passion used to grow stronger to anticipate the festive season. Each and every individual, be it small children or else adults, girls, boys, ladies and gents – almost everybody used to be filled with joyous feeling to celebrate the festival.
The men of the houses used to anticipate company bonus from their bosses, ladies used to be busy preparing sweets and shopping for dresses for their families, and children used to be busy decorating their creations. Wow! Such a wonderful feeling it gives me even today, thinking of the good old days and writing about it! One can imagine how beautiful and wonderful each festival used to be!
Today, you don’t even realize when the festival has arrived and gone, in this fast paced life. The world has divided us in today’s materialistic living conditions. The fervour and the soul of each festival are missing because of commercialisation. Today, everything comes readymade – sweets, decorating materials, dresses and not forgetting the devotion too! Festivals have become robotic in nature. Children have no more enthusiasm because parents are busy working to meet their ever demanding career goals and deadlines for that fat pay package.
In the earlier days, a big colony used to have just ONE pandal to celebrate the joy united as one big family. Today, each colony has as many as ten to fifteen pandals, each divided from the other in the name of caste, creed, language, region, sects and what not! There is loud music everywhere competing with each other as if there is a war. In the good old days, talented individuals of the colony used to get together and put up a great show, with the whole colony enjoying it with pride and joy.
Celebrating a festival used to be such a joyous feeling from within. Today, the exasperated feeling for most of us is – oh, another festival has come! While parents and elderly people reminisce their good old days, today’s children, who are indeed unlucky to miss all those beautiful things we used to enjoy each and every festival with great enthusiasm and passion. In the good old days, the means, in terms of money, were less but it was the united joyous efforts which made each festival a celebration much more worthwhile. On the contrary, even though a lot of money is being spent with much-much less efforts, today the joy is hardly there to experience. Festivals today are being celebrated in the name of tradition rather than celebration, as it used to be in the earlier days.
Earlier people knew how to share joy with each other together. Today, we know how to divide joy and make each other miserable and suffer. Earlier the joy of wearing new clothes used to give an ultimate high, today children wear new clothes at the drop of a hat. No wonder, time has changed and lifestyle too – but is it for good? I often ponder as festivals arrive and pass by in our rich cultural bound country India, which is so very rich in heritage… Well, life in the fast lane has surely killed our ways of thinking and living. The globe has shrunk they say, but tell me why it has divided so much instead of being united? Why have we killed our own small joy and happiness for the sake of being global?
It’s festive season with Ganesh Chaturti being celebrated in amchi Mumbai. Pandals illuminated with bright colourful lights, different sizes and shapes of statues of Lord Ganesha, fragrant colourful flowers adorned everywhere – it’s an arresting sight indeed! People everywhere crowding for darshan, puja and enjoying every moment of the week long festive season in joyous celebration, is such a wonderful feeling!
It also reminds me of the beautiful time I have had, during my childhood with friends. Time has changed drastically and today when I look back – I strongly feel that the soul of the festival is totally missing. Everything has become so-so commercial in today’s life. Life was so much wonderful when we were kids – undying enthusiasm, innocence, pure joy and unity were the main ingredients of every festival. In today’s time these things are missing in totality. We are to be blamed for the lapse but then today’s fast paced life has indeed taken a toll on human bonding.
I still remember the passion we had for a festival to arrive almost a month before, preparing and counting each day – day in and day out with great enthusiasm looking at the calendar every single day. The never ending lump in our throats, collecting various props (toys etc) and showing off them with great pride – used to be the ambience in each and every colony. As the day approaches nearer, the passion used to grow stronger to anticipate the festive season. Each and every individual, be it small children or else adults, girls, boys, ladies and gents – almost everybody used to be filled with joyous feeling to celebrate the festival.
The men of the houses used to anticipate company bonus from their bosses, ladies used to be busy preparing sweets and shopping for dresses for their families, and children used to be busy decorating their creations. Wow! Such a wonderful feeling it gives me even today, thinking of the good old days and writing about it! One can imagine how beautiful and wonderful each festival used to be!
Today, you don’t even realize when the festival has arrived and gone, in this fast paced life. The world has divided us in today’s materialistic living conditions. The fervour and the soul of each festival are missing because of commercialisation. Today, everything comes readymade – sweets, decorating materials, dresses and not forgetting the devotion too! Festivals have become robotic in nature. Children have no more enthusiasm because parents are busy working to meet their ever demanding career goals and deadlines for that fat pay package.
In the earlier days, a big colony used to have just ONE pandal to celebrate the joy united as one big family. Today, each colony has as many as ten to fifteen pandals, each divided from the other in the name of caste, creed, language, region, sects and what not! There is loud music everywhere competing with each other as if there is a war. In the good old days, talented individuals of the colony used to get together and put up a great show, with the whole colony enjoying it with pride and joy.
Celebrating a festival used to be such a joyous feeling from within. Today, the exasperated feeling for most of us is – oh, another festival has come! While parents and elderly people reminisce their good old days, today’s children, who are indeed unlucky to miss all those beautiful things we used to enjoy each and every festival with great enthusiasm and passion. In the good old days, the means, in terms of money, were less but it was the united joyous efforts which made each festival a celebration much more worthwhile. On the contrary, even though a lot of money is being spent with much-much less efforts, today the joy is hardly there to experience. Festivals today are being celebrated in the name of tradition rather than celebration, as it used to be in the earlier days.
Earlier people knew how to share joy with each other together. Today, we know how to divide joy and make each other miserable and suffer. Earlier the joy of wearing new clothes used to give an ultimate high, today children wear new clothes at the drop of a hat. No wonder, time has changed and lifestyle too – but is it for good? I often ponder as festivals arrive and pass by in our rich cultural bound country India, which is so very rich in heritage… Well, life in the fast lane has surely killed our ways of thinking and living. The globe has shrunk they say, but tell me why it has divided so much instead of being united? Why have we killed our own small joy and happiness for the sake of being global?
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