Cashing in on celebrations
Lost glory
Are Indian festivals losing their original significance and fervour?
Now that the festival season is commencing, one can’t help but notice that celebrations today are very different from what they used to be.
Most significantly, these occasions are now much heavier on the wallet than they were before. At the same time, people seem to be forgetting the original meaning behind these festivals as well.
Ganesha habba, one of Bangalore’s most celebrated festivals, is meant to glorify the birth of Lord Ganesha. Traditional celebrations included decorating the City with clay models of Ganesha and cooking modakas, a popular sweet.
After an eleven-day period, these models were meant to be immersed in a water body, a practice referred to as Ganesha visarjan.
Today, however, Ganesha puja has turned into more of a social occasion, with cultural associations organising events centred around it. Some of these, which include even fashion shows, participation by Bollywood singers and actors and fancy dress competitions for children, seem more like parties than actual festival celebrations. Similarly, popular festivals like Deepavali and Rakhi have been highly commercialised as well.
Designer rakhis, Deepavali gift hampers and parties are all part of the commercialisation of these festivals. The intention behind this deliberate commercialisation is evident – they enable the manufacturers of all these products to rake in ridiculous profits every time such an event comes around.
Prabhakar, a human resources professional, believes that this phenomenon originated around the time when the Indian economy was globalised.
“Festivals like Deepavali should be celebrated in the traditional way. They should showcase our culture and belief system. But ever since the advent of globalisation, they have increasingly become commercialised. The MNCs have converted our festivals into businesses, and show lots of fancy advertisements about the things you could spend your money on,” he says, adding that this is largely an urban phenomenon. “In rural areas, where MNCs don’t have much of a grasp, festivals are still celebrated in the traditional way.”
Narendra Singh, a restaurant manager, agrees that festivals these days have become more about spending money. “Companies want to turn these occasions into a means to earn more profit, so they put up a lot of offers that seem attractive to people,” he says.
He adds that spending money on a festival has become almost a way to gauge a person’s social worth. “It’s also a way for families to show off. They like buying branded things, and have started seeing these festivals simply as an excuse to spend money,” he explains.
However, not everyone agrees with this cynical perspective. Palak Shah, a professional, says that festive celebrations do sometimes retain their old world charm.
“It’s true that in some cases, the true value of celebrating a festival has diminished.
But this isn’t always the case, and moreover it happens only to a certain extent. People still give importance to traditional
festivities, like making sweets and doing pujas,” she says firmly.
