IT'S TIME TO ENJOY :)

FESTIVITIES BRING LIFE

"India is the land of festivals, write an essay on this topic”, Ah, what are you thinking, this was my class six holidays homework! ye hi na? Yes it was. And what did you do then to finish it off? Copied it, pasted it, got it dictated, tried writing it….just finished it off. Right?

Today we are not given any such topics to write essays on but life has taught us that Indian festivals are much more than pieces of literary composition or red marks on the calendar. They are the method of telling us that life is way above the toiling activity that we have made it to be. These are diversions from the mundane daily chores that we assume is life. They give us an opportunity to live than to exist. Rushing to work early in the morning we just manage to smile at the neighbourhood aunt or wave at the friend next door. We go to corporate dinners but are too buys to invite friends over for a tete a tete. Day after day passes and converts to months, years and decades. A gray hair or a new developed wrinkle makes us realize how time has flown and how much we have missed. One fine day we grow old, retire and realize: Shit, I did not relish what was to be enjoyed, I did not get naughty or childlike when it was time to be just myself! Is it? Do our lives actually get so prosaic? Hey, come on …of course they don’t!

Thanks to the festivals that give us a chance to do bizarre things like splash colour on one another and get weird under the effect of Bhaang. Some of them give us an opportunity to meet one and all on the pretext of sharing sweets or distributing savaiyaan, others let us dance to the beats of a dhol around the fire. We get an excuse to pamper ourselves by buying cosmetics and bangles for a festival and an occasion to squeeze our inner selves and do some daan on a particular date. The sun or the moon is worshipped and even the children and the husband made to feel special, the holy snan is valued and even the earthen lamps remembered after ages, we are fortunate to dance crazily with Daandiaas in hand and shout Ganpatti Morya loudest in a big mob. So much and much more.

The celebrations tell us that life is good, gala and worth the merrymaking. The jubilant atmosphere makes us realize that those around us, those who form our world share our joys. It tells us that it is wonderful and more beautiful when we all smile together, laugh in a group and act mad collectively. The carnival of cooperation is the feather in the cap of the tyohaars.

Well well, but all is not all that well with the recent trend of celebrations. The whole family gathers in front of the idiot box to witness the Star Plus Holi celebrations, to see what Kumkum is wearing to the Diwali party, to judge which couple featured best in the Karvachauth Antakshri. Is this why we have an off on these days? The Gujiya exchange has shrunk to sms forwarding. The new age woes of the fiesta days are many, but with Holi here, the mood is too jolly to dwell upon these dark sides. Let’s leave the sad part of the discussion for some other day, when there are no gala festivities round the corner. Hey but wait, in India, such a day would be tough, rather impossible to get. So, what is the worry! Let us get into the best of our dresses and pick our Pichkaris…only Gulal, did you say? Well well, as I already told you, these occasions bring out the mischievous kid in us…so be prepared for bhallas of bhaang and balloons flying down terraces…. Happy Holi. . . . . . . . . .

Wonders of Reading

THE DELIGHT CALLED BOOKS
Books are a man’s best friends, is a saying we have all grown up on. The teacher told this in the class and Ma Pa repeated it at home. It probably took us a little of our own lives to realize the truth of the hackneyed idiom. The moment we were old enough to hold a pen in our yet forming thumbs, we scribbled at whatever we could lay our hands on - the wall, the table and important documents. The only books that we possessed when we entered school were those of alphabets and were very dear to us. Coloured pictures and lovely illustrations adorned the glossy pages. As we reached senior classes, syllabus mounted and the books became thicker with the word font becoming smaller. The charm flipped to tension of compulsory reading sessions and we hated them. Our text books were like demons and the thought that kept coming back to the mind was the absurdity of the idiom – Books are the best friends of man – we were more than ready to flip the word to enemy, monster, devil, scarecrow…. Ah! the futile world and its vague claims. And then one fine day, the gates of school library opened, some one gifted the well illustrated Panchtantra ki Kahaniyaan or Noddy on a birthday, suddenly friends brought Amar Chtra Katha comics hidden inside text books, the big book store at the mall seemed attractive, and the world changed.
Let me get personal from here on, my first memories of a book that Papa gifted me are that of the Three Little Pigs. It had huge pages full of attractive animations and a small sentence on each page that took the story forward. I was in KG and read the book with enthusiasm. Today I have grown from Misha to Aym Rand and on the way, passed milestones called the Pink Panther, Dada ka Chashma, Heidi, Arabian Nights, Gulliver’s Travels among may other wonderful experiences. Once caught reading comics of Chacha Chaudhary at age six, a harsh lecture by my father on the value of reading good books had to be faced. Till Class Seven, Enid Blyton was my favourite issued author from the school library. I was again strictly told that I had grown above the toy stories and should be venturing into Tagore and Prem Chand. Ah! What a blow upon a teenager’s inflated ego! I promptly got Prem Ashram issued. The text, the language and the issues were however too complex for my yet immature mind and the book got reissued in my name for three consecutive weeks. Then one Friday night, I read out all the pages mechanically when the librarian had warned me against further reissues. Honestly speaking, it was just an unthinking read with no understanding making its roads to my mind or heart. Books till then used to be a forced endeavor. It is a spectacle, how gradually I started loving and relishing them. Lok Kathayen, Fairy tales, legends, riddles gave way to short stories, classics, real life adventure accounts and then to award winning books. The craze mounted to such an extent that anything from a magazine in a barber shop to an envelope made of newspaper to the dusty library section of old editions of journals seemed adorable.
The habit of reading which my teachers and parents inculcated in me now seems to be the best thing that has happened to my life. While reading Guide, I could relate to each sigh of the protagonist, when experiencing Emma, I felt as if I were the soul in the character. Recently We the Living gave me life-cherishing moments. While I go through books, they take me to a different life. Sometimes the author transportes me to a ball room in medieval England (Pride and Prejudice) and at other moments, I am made to witness riots in Bangladesh (Lajja), I fly to the States (Namesake) in a moment and come to post partition India (Midnight’s Children) the other. The joys of reading can not be traded. One thing that I have come to know however is, it is a marvel reading a good writer but if you come across bad translations of a great work, you might end up losing the charm and interest for ever.
Books, I can vouch with all my life’s experience, are a man’s best friends. The responsibility is upon us to take the youngsters through their journey in a healthy fashion. I am glad, I was guided well.

MINE IS ALL YOURS

PRIVATE IS NO MORE PERSONAL
Once upon a time people used to write letters. Friends would long for and feel glad to listen the post man’s cycle ringing. Then times changed and mails took over the letters. Beautiful envelopes and well-decorated and scented letter pads gave way to key clicks. Being in touch with the world around through exchange of emotions has till date remained the social animal’s dear habit. What has changed however, is the arena of this wish. It was considered a bad tradition to read some one’s letter. If a diary was lying on the table open and fluttering pages, still only an ill-mannered person would dare touch it. Ah, it is personal after all and it is therefore private, we were told. The moral classes at school and the conduct lessons at home hammered the basic code of ethics in our minds, which was topped by the diction of never to read anyone’s personal messages or mails.
These conventions remained the same as we progressed to mails at Yahoo or Rediff. The internet mail services gave us an option to keep a password which we did not share with anyone. It was a secret code like that to our ATMs and credit cards. One could write hundred mails a day and keep them all limited to exchange between himself and the mailed friend. There came chat rooms and they brought privacy to new heights. They were so private and exclusive that even your own identity could be kept only to yourself. The person chatting to you in a chat room would not necessarily know who you were if you wished to keep it surreptitious. Concealment was an asset we thought, that the web world has brought to us.
Then one fine day, Orkut was introduced and out went the hush-hush element. We would still keep passwords to our accounts but there was no need to be reserved. Orkut became immensely popular, so much so that it was awarded the MTV Youth Icon of 2006 recognition. Suddenly social networking sites mushroomed all over the net. Facebook et al became the order of the day. The charm? Well, you could chat to a Brazilian woman or court a beautiful girl and let all your friends see it. The sharing of personal mails and scraps, got the youth rolling. One’s scrapbook was visible to everyone. There were instances when one had not seen his own scraps but others had. My, my! what an intrusion to one’s personal life and private space! Ah, give me a break… this is the in thing. Personal becoming pubic is the latest trend. Enhancements in the site features have provided options like locking one’s scrapbook, album or videos, but hardy ten percent of the users do that. It is fun to let the world get acquainted with you. It is cool if the whole planet, even those who do not know you can see what you did last summer and experience your birthday party. My favourie songs and my description about myself is for you to relish. What I feel, I now write on a blog rather that a personal diary (I just remembered, lock coded diaries were a fag during my schooldays), but now I don’t even latch it. I am not deliberating upon this trend being a healthy one or if the youth is inviting danger by becoming so open and available. All that I am observing is the possibility and acceptance of publication of private lives and conversations, of personal incidents and emotions. Maybe this is the concept of globalised lives that we dreamt of.