Where has the human touch in festivities gone?
"How different is this from going to a discotheque?" asked a friend, glancing at the motley crowd swaying to bad remixes of Bollywood numbers at one of the biggest dandiya venues in the city. "For starters, right now, you are bogged down by kilos of fabric and jewellery in every colour and hue," supplied another friend helpfully. "Secondly, here, you are using sticks instead of your elbows to connect with other human beings," he added.
The comparison was unfair and the cynicism unnecessary, I agree, but one has to understand that my friends grew up in simpler and not-so-happening times when 'doing dandiya' meant climbing down the stairs and dancing to 'Dholi taaro' in the building compound. There were no civic or police regulations and no 10pm deadlines since there were no blaring loudspeakers shattering the peace of the neighbourhood. Most youngsters played dandiya or garba well into the night as the elders huddled together in the distance, chatting over snacks and tea and keeping a discreet but watchful eye in case there was too much mingling of the sexes.
And most of us did not even dress up to the nines, forget making a trip to Surat (or wherever people go these days) to buy an intricately designed ghagra choli that one now gets to flaunt on a blemish-free and gleaming body acquired after spending several hours and good money at the beauty clinic. And we stuffed our faces with all the festival goodies since weight watching and calorie counting were yet to become buzzwords.
"Growing up in the early 1990s had its perks," pointed out a colleague who was a teenager at the time. "The chief among them being the human connect which people of my generation often talk about nostalgically. However, these days, we do nothing to rectify what we are missing out on, thanks to our hectic lives and packed schedules," she said.
Not too long ago, before we slowly and steadily commercialised all our celebrations and replaced filial bonding with consumerism, festivals meant time well spent bantering with family and friends over wholesome home-cooked food.
And though I am not the one for nostalgia and seldom hark back on the good old days, I can understand why some people of my generation get all misty-eyed when they talk about festivities during their childhood and the memories they still evoke.
"Sometimes, I wonder what my children would remember from their Navratri celebrations," said a mother of two. "Tripping on their heavy ghagras as Falguni Pathak crooned folk numbers or running into Amisha Patel at the same salon where they had gone to get their backs polished," suggested my ever helpful friend.
"How different is this from going to a discotheque?" asked a friend, glancing at the motley crowd swaying to bad remixes of Bollywood numbers at one of the biggest dandiya venues in the city. "For starters, right now, you are bogged down by kilos of fabric and jewellery in every colour and hue," supplied another friend helpfully. "Secondly, here, you are using sticks instead of your elbows to connect with other human beings," he added.
The comparison was unfair and the cynicism unnecessary, I agree, but one has to understand that my friends grew up in simpler and not-so-happening times when 'doing dandiya' meant climbing down the stairs and dancing to 'Dholi taaro' in the building compound. There were no civic or police regulations and no 10pm deadlines since there were no blaring loudspeakers shattering the peace of the neighbourhood. Most youngsters played dandiya or garba well into the night as the elders huddled together in the distance, chatting over snacks and tea and keeping a discreet but watchful eye in case there was too much mingling of the sexes.
And most of us did not even dress up to the nines, forget making a trip to Surat (or wherever people go these days) to buy an intricately designed ghagra choli that one now gets to flaunt on a blemish-free and gleaming body acquired after spending several hours and good money at the beauty clinic. And we stuffed our faces with all the festival goodies since weight watching and calorie counting were yet to become buzzwords.
"Growing up in the early 1990s had its perks," pointed out a colleague who was a teenager at the time. "The chief among them being the human connect which people of my generation often talk about nostalgically. However, these days, we do nothing to rectify what we are missing out on, thanks to our hectic lives and packed schedules," she said.
Not too long ago, before we slowly and steadily commercialised all our celebrations and replaced filial bonding with consumerism, festivals meant time well spent bantering with family and friends over wholesome home-cooked food.
And though I am not the one for nostalgia and seldom hark back on the good old days, I can understand why some people of my generation get all misty-eyed when they talk about festivities during their childhood and the memories they still evoke.
"Sometimes, I wonder what my children would remember from their Navratri celebrations," said a mother of two. "Tripping on their heavy ghagras as Falguni Pathak crooned folk numbers or running into Amisha Patel at the same salon where they had gone to get their backs polished," suggested my ever helpful friend.
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