Adults seldom celebrate because one needs to be a child to 'celebrate', particularly the festivals.Often I feel it...Sometimes I believe it...what we do today is less of celebration...and more of enjoyment, fun and frolic. Is there any difference ? There is...Deepawali is right at the door, I am definitely going to 'celebrate' it with my family and friends...but, besides all that fun, I miss something...yes, amid those frolic looms a nostalgia....
The deepawali nostalgia....................
As in maharashtra miniature fort\gadh are erected, likewise in northern india these earthen mini doll houses were built on the occassion. It was followed as a tradition,a part of deewali celebrations. As the festival came nearer our parents geared up to clean and paint our houses, we kids also planned for our doll houses.Down the lane many chubby faces flash through my mind, some smeared with mud, others shining with the trikkling sweat. There i see one of them...of course its me.
Near our colony was a big field, stretching along the boundry line of central ordinance depot (COD). We used to dig out the soil and carry it to our houses in buckets and bags, making a small mound of it, putting water in it to be soaked and left to become soft. Later it was kneeded to a soft smooth paste for plastering the walls. The structure was erected with bricks and planks, all the architectrual competence was put to experiment. Double storey houses with staircases leading to the rooftop, single storey ones with garden in front. After the plaster dried, they were painted with distempers...the colour scheme was of much importance. As all the neighbourhood was painted fresh, so we had enough choice. We collected the colours as per our requirements from the uncles and aunts of the colony. We drew beautiful designs along the borders of the doors and windows, the whole exercise used to take quite a few days but the satisfaction of building our own home was unmatchable. Infact thinking of it after such a long period, my heart is filled with that innocent happiness, a kind of purified feeling.
You know, there never was a feeling of 'ye mera ghar ,ye tera ghar'. Gharondas were a joint responsibility. Work was entrusted as per expertise, it was fixed, on which day we all will gather on whose open courtyard for building the gharonda. Well,some individual touches were ofcourse displayed in respective houses but we never used to restrict our creative ideas just for our own houses. It was always a group venture and whatever ideas came up at the moment were implemented on the gharoda under constrrction. No negative feelings of crude rivalry. The community feeling was above all and that was the essence of our festivals then. Hey, I am falling again in love....with that childhood self. How simple and happy we were.
On the deewali night our doll house was decorated with various clay toys, some toys were deewali specials, a 'gujaria' i.e. village belle with a diya on head and two on both the outstretched palms, the toys were all dressed in rich bright colours, the gujarias in lehangas of contrasting colours, the purple and green, red and yellow, blue and queen shade with chunnis of various shades.Another must toy for girls was the kitchen set of clay, those kitchen sets were the same in every market of all the nearby cities, all same shining pink. I wish to get pictures of those toys, may be in rural northern india or small towns still have those colourful 'haat' type markets during deewali but in cities they have been definitely obselete, if not altogether vanished.
Now there are no open courtyards in homes to build those doll houses. No open grounds nearby to get such soil. The commercialisation of festivals has somehow snatched away the feel of the occassion. May be it's the price we have to pay for this 'progress', but I long for those sweet days, for that taste of sweat, for that 'sondhi' smell of 'kachchi mitti'. God, can i become that child again ?
enough to dispel darkness
picture by shubham sunder
written in oct.2008
