Fast Life......Lost Spirit

Today is a state holiday in Karnataka. Its the celebration of New Year for people in certain parts of India....I am at home idle, wiling away time, doing nothing.......in the sense doing nothing related to the festival. I am not celebrating it. For that matter, I don't recall celebrating any festival of late. Its not that I have lost interest out of the blue. But its the way of life I have gotten into. Given a holiday, I would be at home, laze around and think about the mad week that has passed by, glad enough to have got a day off to break away from the chaotic nature of mind and relax it.

HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS UGADI FOLKS

When I was a kid, a festival was looked forward to with great fervor and excitement. Diwali was one such festival I started preparing almost 2 months before it arrived. Thinking about what new dress my parents would buy, what other gifts I would get, the idea of missing school for 3 days! Yeah that's right. School used to be shut for 3 days during Diwali, unlike now, just a day. The variety of crackers and fireworks that I would have, meeting cousins, uncles, aunts, receiving gifts from them... Shopping for a toy gun was a ritual. We used to go with our parents and diligently choose a gun - NO to plastic toy guns, they may break. It was stainless steel, polished and glittering in the sun. Once we finalized on our toy guns, next was to buy rollers - which is to be inserted into the gun and shoot....shoot...shoot........

And yes, not to forget the day of festival, when it finally arrived, the ritual oil bath....it was not an event to look forward to - Whole body massaged with Sesame oil and we would be advised to keep that oil on us for about an hour while it seeped into our eyes. It was a religious ritual, but medicinally helpful - to cool down one's body. But this was a necessary evil, as the bath was followed by getting to wear new dress. The excitement, the happiness, the plead to wear it before the festival and the stern rejections from parents.....And yes, who can forget the sumptuous festival meal after the pooja......

The burring of fire crackers would begin 1 week prior to the festival. Entire streets, roads covered with blown up papers, mixture of red and white papers...the burnt out sparkling sticks........
Well, the same during Christmas, the excitement of counting the number of paper stars hung outside buildings month before Christmas, the idea of looking at decorations and feeling them in a Christmas tree...the satin ribbons, tiny bells, the tiny stars......tiny presents.........

Today is neither Diwali, nor Christmas. One might wonder why am I talking about them. I still have the same excitement to count the stars for Christmas, appreciate a Christmas tree. But alas, seems its no more the same.

I hardly see a star hung out on Christmas, hardly see a Christmas tree outside a home a month before Christmas, and certainly I don't see the burnt out papers on the streets a week before Diwali(Don't get me wrong. I am certainly in for a greener Diwali. Its just that I want to point out the loss of excitement among people). I have the inkling to celebrate but have lost the excitement and the spirit. The enthusiasm that I had as a child, waiting for the D-day, waking up the whole night the previous day...its no more.

Fast life, complicated, competitive - no time to keep up with our celebrations, our culture. Fast disposable income, high level of stress, work pressure, nuclear family, no friends, lonely life......Friends and families are greeted over e-mails and SMSes.Whatever little time one gets is spent sleeping, snoring, just lazing around, strolling around a mall, looking at mannequins and buying things one doesn't know if its really needed, think about work even while off it, take out your cellphones every other minute to check if there are any missed calls......WHEN YOU REALLY KNOW THAT THERE IS NO ONE WHO WOULD BE MISSING YOU AND WOULD BE THINKING ABOUT YOU.

This fast life has surely made us walking-talking dead woods.


Thanks Mano for correcting my flaw of wrongly mentioning Castor oil instead of Sesame oil