The one about Festivals

Disclaimer: This is a rant post. If you don't agree with the contents of this post then please feel free to scroll away. I am only as interested in knowing and understanding your views, as you are in knowing and understanding mine.

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I am neither a die-hard animal rights activist, nor a born-again sustainability expert; neither an arm-chair liberal, nor a pseudo-secular. I am just an average guy who finds this commoditization, gamification and dehumanisation of festivals, horribly irritating and dangerous - an average guy who usually keeps these views to himself as he doesnt want to piss over someone else's parade or get into a mud-slinging match with the easily offended zealots.

If you have lived long enough, you'd probably agree that these days all festivals sound and smell the same - sound of blaring loudspeakers or fire crackers and smell of smoke emanating from the same. Be it Uttarayan, Diwali, Navratri or Holi - mindless cacophony is a common characteristic. I talk about Hindu festivals, not because I dont want to offend the 'minority communities', but because I am a Hindu and only know a thing or two about Hindu festivals. I am sure that the situation is just the same, if not worse, during festivals across most religions.

Every festival is becoming one more excuse for personal, community and political one-upmanship. Everyone wants a larger loudspeaker, louder firecracker and spend more than the next guy, house or lane. And in the midst of all this nonsense, a sizeable part of the population gets grinded in - the infants, old, infirm, the non-humans and the ones who just want some quietude.

I understand the importance of festivals - they feed the economy, bring us together as a family and community, and give us a much-desired break from work. But can't people be a little more civic, sensitive and considerate of everyone's situation? Cant people just think for a while before bursting loud firecrackers into the night and that too near hospitals? Cant people understand that washing the streets with animal blood is not a good idea?

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After-thought: They can't and they wont. People only voice their minds over social media, they seldom change it there. I have pretty much resigned to the fate that festivals are only going to get worse with each passing year. They have become an occupational hazard of being 'human'.

Discomforting Replies

We live in an unfairly segmented and segregated world. There are grid lines running everywhere – lines cutting across the rich and the poor, young and old, ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ castes… and at a very fundamental level – man and woman. And each one of us is part of and (to various extent) party to this unfair world. Some bring down the average by continuing to do despicable things (and finding new ways of doing it) while others bring down the average by just being average – being part of the quiet masses that accept, normalize and thereby encourage the aforementioned dastardly acts.

The past month has been quite difficult. Every wall I scroll, every feed I read is full of women finally finding the courage to name and shame the perpetrators – men who have taken these women and their silence for granted; the privileged who have misused and abused their privileges. Most of these perpetrators are now buckling up to weather the storm; and weather it they will because most of them are too well-entrenched and well-connected to be uprooted or isolated. I read these articles, posts and tweets and feel equally complicit (if not more). Because although I may not have harassed, objectified or exploited women in public or private life, I have been a spectator – and largely, a mute spectator. And while there have been occasions where I have expressed my displeasure of the ‘dude-bro’ culture to the dudes and the bros; but these occasions have far too few to merit an exoneration. And I firmly believe that I am not an isolated example. I am sure that like me, there are many men out there who must be reading these allegations and thinking “wow! Thank God I’m not one of them”…. Just ask yourself in all honesty… Am I?

Have you seen something like this happen at home, office or public places and remained quiet? Have you seen the women of your house being cut short in a conversation, being told that ‘this is not an area of your expertise’, or ‘you will not understand these things’? Have you been part of a dude-bro gang at office where people have bragged about their latest exploits, name called a female colleague who did not respond to their not-so-subtle cues, attributed a female colleague’s success or promotion to her gender rather than her work? Ask yourself these questions and reply to yourself. Your replies are important to you, not me. I have enough uncomfortable replies of my own that I need to deal with and live with.

The past cannot be changed. But it should not be rationalized and accepted as well. The past needs to be acknowledged, evaluated and duly addressed so that it remains in the past and doesn’t get repeated in the future. Because, despite the outrage that is being expressed today, despite the wrongs that are being called out today, despite the courage that is being shown today; if the future doesn’t change. Then, shame on us.