morphing Holi
Holi is here... the official start of Spring ...
does it feel like anything like Spring in today's times? esp. in the metro cities.. the weather is always the same.. smoggy and dusty and no sign of anything green that could show the signs of change...
there is but the rampant commercialization and mindless noise pollution in the name of celebration - it feels like a bunch of directionless driving, going round and round not knowing what to do next; more often it is the under-priviledged class of people who seem to make morenoise thinking that they are celebrating like the people they see on TV trying to project that they TOO can celebrate... except that they end up making
more noise and creating more nuisance than ever celebrating...
how could one relate that this is the same Holi that we celebrated way back in time - just 10 years ago - when people actually got together with the traditional ways of celebration.. surely this could be a comparison of the ways times have changed but they don't call them the 'good' old days for nothing...
Well,the festival surely has morphed into it's modern format where plastic chemical and toxic chemicals are used in colors, plastic is all pervasive choking all and sundry and the most important resource of ours - water - gets wasted like no one's business and no one ever blinks twice....
that's the holi for all of you today.. more noise, more wastage, more pollution and all the less fun.. but hey, that's the new India
And in this day and age of computers and Internet, the new approach of connecting with unknowns is the virtual Holi wishing process imagining that we are celebrating in the same fervour as the images, that we forward to people, convey ...
surely was simpler and easier to celebrate earlier... esp. because you had friends close by.. now they are all over the world
reminds me of the good 'ol Chacha Choudhary/Billoo days .. reading about Chachaand Billoo celebrating Holi and really feeling the celebration in usaround us... the tales about eating Gujhiyas and playing with colorsreally added spice to the celebrations in those days
But I must admit that this is one time of the year when you get to hearthe good old songs of the 80s and 90s which make the day all the morememorable.
Songs made immemorial by the sheer sense of participation and bringing in the true sense of celebration - like Rang Barse in Silsila immortalizing Amitabh Bachchan and his whole family including his late poet father Sh. Harivanshrai Bachchan
and then there are songs from the earliest movie Navrang Late C Ramchandra, and Zakhmi with Sunil Dutt, or Rajesh Khanna in Kati Patang or for that matter Baghban.. basically immortalizaing Amitabh Bachchan as the icon of Holi or for that matter, iconizing the place he comes from - UP/Allahabad
And however cynical I may feel about the way this day has changed in its form and format, esp. in the metros, I still think there is some place in this nation where it is still simply celebrated as Holi but hard to imagine where that place could me...
nevertheless the best part is that it does bring in a sense of joy when you see people out there together playing with colors and esp. kids who make the most of the day...
does it feel like anything like Spring in today's times? esp. in the metro cities.. the weather is always the same.. smoggy and dusty and no sign of anything green that could show the signs of change...
there is but the rampant commercialization and mindless noise pollution in the name of celebration - it feels like a bunch of directionless driving, going round and round not knowing what to do next; more often it is the under-priviledged class of people who seem to make morenoise thinking that they are celebrating like the people they see on TV trying to project that they TOO can celebrate... except that they end up making
more noise and creating more nuisance than ever celebrating...
how could one relate that this is the same Holi that we celebrated way back in time - just 10 years ago - when people actually got together with the traditional ways of celebration.. surely this could be a comparison of the ways times have changed but they don't call them the 'good' old days for nothing...
Well,the festival surely has morphed into it's modern format where plastic chemical and toxic chemicals are used in colors, plastic is all pervasive choking all and sundry and the most important resource of ours - water - gets wasted like no one's business and no one ever blinks twice....
that's the holi for all of you today.. more noise, more wastage, more pollution and all the less fun.. but hey, that's the new India
And in this day and age of computers and Internet, the new approach of connecting with unknowns is the virtual Holi wishing process imagining that we are celebrating in the same fervour as the images, that we forward to people, convey ...
surely was simpler and easier to celebrate earlier... esp. because you had friends close by.. now they are all over the worldreminds me of the good 'ol Chacha Choudhary/Billoo days .. reading about Chachaand Billoo celebrating Holi and really feeling the celebration in usaround us... the tales about eating Gujhiyas and playing with colorsreally added spice to the celebrations in those days
But I must admit that this is one time of the year when you get to hearthe good old songs of the 80s and 90s which make the day all the morememorable.
Songs made immemorial by the sheer sense of participation and bringing in the true sense of celebration - like Rang Barse in Silsila immortalizing Amitabh Bachchan and his whole family including his late poet father Sh. Harivanshrai Bachchan
and then there are songs from the earliest movie Navrang Late C Ramchandra, and Zakhmi with Sunil Dutt, or Rajesh Khanna in Kati Patang or for that matter Baghban.. basically immortalizaing Amitabh Bachchan as the icon of Holi or for that matter, iconizing the place he comes from - UP/Allahabad
And however cynical I may feel about the way this day has changed in its form and format, esp. in the metros, I still think there is some place in this nation where it is still simply celebrated as Holi but hard to imagine where that place could me...
nevertheless the best part is that it does bring in a sense of joy when you see people out there together playing with colors and esp. kids who make the most of the day...
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