Opinion It’s that time of the year again

In essence,festivals achieve just that,from our individual,floating lives,they take us back to the mainland of communities and celebrations. Festivals connect us to our ancient myths,where,“the myth is the society’s dream,the public dream,” writes Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth. All sports and festivals,as well as observances of every kind,maybe traced back into antiquity. Festivals provide that link,not just between humans and their ancestors,but humankind and history.

Many Western conventions,followed today,have been handed down by Rome and Romulus. For example,Roman knights could give presents to Emperor Augustus only during a certain time of the year,and were prohibited from doing so at any other season. So gift-giving became specific to a time period. The Druids,back in the Iron Age,decorated their houses with plants that remained green through winter,like ivy,laurel,cypress,believing that sylvan spirits could live in them till winter thawed. More than 3,000 years later,we use the same plants to decorate our winter houses.

But we have also distorted those fragments of antiquity. We have all ranted and clenched fists at festivals,be it the interminable traffic jams of Ganesh Chaturthi,the noise of Diwali,the hooligans at Holi,the river-pollution at Durga pooja or the commercialisation of Christmas. Festivals can also be politicised and used to polarise. But how many people actually hate festivals,not for the ill effects and our excesses,but for the festival itself? After all,festivals don’t cause pollution and rowdiness,the blame lies in the methods we choose to observe them.

Festivals break the monotony of the everyday,providing us milestones by which to remember the year. Don’t you remember your years in college by the Holi celebrations? One of my most vivid memories of college was the day we sat on the front lawn,purple of face,caked in mud,but warm with sunlight,bhang and joy. The recollection of singing ‘Silent Night’ at Delhi’s Sacred Heart Cathedral,swaddled in a shawl,and holding a flickering candle still brings a smile to my face. I remember the smell of gunpowder hanging in the air as we watched fireworks from a terrace in Jaipur.

Festivals connect us to a collective past but also tap our individual memories. A friend says that her favourite memory of Ramzan is the “ek gaal ka roza,” where her mother told her that children could keep a “one-cheek fast”. For a month,she diligently chewed only from one side. Another friend recalls the thrills of Meji Bihu in Assam,when she and her friends got the chance to make a bamboo hut,source and cook food,without adult supervision.

The rice turned out raw and the hut was barely stable but it was the highlight of her seven-year-old life.

Today,as you put up the Christmas wreath and the final touches to the cake,let’s remember the ancients,look for the sylvan spirits in the laurel and celebrate life on the mainland.

nandini.nair@expressindia.com