Another Vishu passes by… And without much fanfare and without any major excitement; it turns out to be another lazy weekend.
Sometimes, I wonder when is that me and many of my acquaintances (friends and others) have developed this indifference to festivals. As any nostalgic soul like me who always like to live in the ruminations of the past, I too take a deep breath, sip a cup of tea and then let it drown.
It was so exciting during my childhood days when we wait eagerly for Vishu so that we can light crackers, the sparklers and lots of them. We wake up at 2 AM to see the Vishukkani – The auspicious first sight during the year – prepared by my achchamma and then the most interesting part, the Vishukkaineettam – The fresh 1 rupee and 10 rupee notes that we, children, receive from the elders as a token of prosperity, and then run to the courtyard to have a blast with the lights, sparklers and the fireworks! We even had competition among the kids on who will burst the first cracker during the dawn. The fresh notes would be preserved in our text books, mostly mathematics text books because they were the thickest ones among the six subjects.
“Nowadays, people treat/live every day as a festival and there is no difference – hence the indifference”, my granny explained and my conscience kept telling me that it is something more. It can’t be only this. We all have developed a sense of indifference for everything – A sense of fear for failure – A feeling that it is better to die than to fail. And I am really disturbed by this. We are being overcautious about everything and we pretend to be indifferent – and that is more dangerous – We “pretend” to be indifferent; where we actually are more than cautious and careful about events, functions and all related things, but are not ready to admit – May be of false pride, may be of fear of failure or may be of peer pressure.
And I take another deep breath, sip another cup of tea and let this drown…
By the way, may this Vishu bring all of my friends, acquaintances, well wishers, people whom I know, whom I do not, and everybody else – peace, happiness, prosperity, health and wealth
Note: Vishu is the Malayalam New Year that starts on 14th/15th of April every year. This also denotes the season for seeding for the first crop during the year. Achchamma is paternal granny
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