Festival Times

I started writing this post when Dussehra was happening and I was travelling to Kerala. I was trying out mobile blogging and found it too much of a pain. Now that I am back in Bangalore and Diwali is almost here, fitting enough to continue the post..

There was a time when I used to like and enjoy festivals. But over the years, as the family started moving to different locations, the excitement over festivals has kinda come down. I guess it was also a growing up thing when it started becoming less 'cool' if you showed too much enthu about the whole fireworks thing. Also, Kerala was never big on Diwali.

But one thing is for sure, festivals really liven up the spirit of people. Everyday someone is asking me what's your plan for Diwali. People are going for long vacations. They are much nicer to each other (excluding Hosur Road). They are more sanguine about the month with the bonus expected for Diwali in the rest of the country and for Onam in Kerala. It's the same for Christmas anywhere else in the world. It's almost contagious.....(hey, I even remember the time when my company used to provide a large package of sweets...well those were the days of a small company...)

But I wonder how many of us really understand each of the festivals. If our generation itself has such a bad understanding of the history, what will happen when it comes to the next gen......But i guess it is still nice to see that even the yuppie couples of today with their kids, try hard to inculcate the festival spirit. I think these may be the last strands of 'culture' that we may need to cling on to if we need to continue talking about 'the great indian story' for years to come.

After all, it is the age when families rarely sit down at the dinner table together (despite what all the Karan Johar movies and the soaps might show) giving precedence to the TV and the mobile. I just hope I can continue the tradition of sitting at the dinner table forward....cant say thanks enough to my dad for that...though I have cribbed so many times about this during my childhood.....

IBCD?

What will we look like 10 yrs down the line? Will we be even more Americanized than it is already? Is it now more IBCD (Indian-born Confused Desi) rather than ABCD (American Born Confused Desi)

This topic came up with a friend today. This whole thing about 'culture' has become so diluted already. I for one definitely am part of this confused set of young people who are not ready to take the leap to western values but cannot still cling on completely to the cultural values that we were brought up.

If this is the case with people now, what would be the next generation be looking at? Will they have special tuitions for teaching 'mother tongue'? Will people still do the 'pujas'? Will we still fall at the feet of our elders when they bless you?

I think I have talked about this in a previous post. I believe our generation is in a critical period and what the position of India as a country will be in the future (from a cultural richness perspective) depends on the position each of us take wrt a lot of these simple things.

I think we are going to be the 'baby boomers' for the country.....hmm...that's a lot of things to carry on our shoulders...and we dont even realize it...