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Know your festival
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In the season of celebrations, here is a guide on festivals
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Reasoning customs Soumya Aravind Sitaraman
Have lost touch with the tradition? Want to know why your mother insists on drawing a rangoli every festival and tasting five flavours on New Year’s Day or for that matter the significance of turmeric Ganesha that your grandfather used to creat
e when you were young? Help is at hand. Random House has just come up with a tome called ‘Follow The Hindu Moon’. Written by Soumya Aravind Sitaraman, it is a two-volume guide to the festivals of South India. From the favourite flower of the deity to the prescribed slokas to the festival menu, the book has it all. Shiva prefers hibiscus while Vishnu favours tulsi.
Soumya says, “It is not about going ritualistic. Yes, rituals are a small part of celebrating a festival but it’s more of celebrating a living tradition and enjoying the glorious past. The book is for people who want to celebrate but don’t know why they are celebrating and what is the right way to go about the rituals.”
She says the readers can pick and choose as she has given options like quick and elaborate options to perform a pooja. “I personally believe in advaita. To me religion is just a road sign to reach the divine. But there are young couples who move out from family homes and don’t know what to do on the festival day.”
Personal experience
As always, the book is the result of Soumya’s personal experience. Having spent many years in the U.S., Soumya found herself at sea when her growing son started asking about the significance of festivals he was asked to celebrate.
“As a child you are initiated into a religion by performing certain rituals but after a while if you are not told what these rituals signify, you either leave them or keep on performing as a routine. I wanted my son to know the real story behind the festivals but I had no clue. For instance, the innate thought behind lighting diyas on Diwali is to shed ignorance.”
There started Soumya’s journey to explore the tradition. Having come from custom-rich Mylapore area of Chennai, Soumya says she grew up celebrating festivals but had lost touch with the tradition.
“I started from the elderly people around me and then moved to some serious research where I picked nuggets from Puranas, Surya Siddhanth, Arthashastra and Vivek Churamani. I have tried to bring forth the scientific side of festivals by studying the significance of solstices and equinoxes. The more I researched, the larger the number of compelling scientific reasons I found for a prescribed tradition.”
She cites the importance of eating on banana leaves. “There is no chance of contamination and you are one with nature. Similarly, rangoli not only adds to decoration but keeps the ants at bay as well. As prevention used to be top priority in early days turmeric, a known antiseptic and antipyretic, was used to create Ganesha.” Some findings are incredible. Like the metti or toe-ring, slipped on a woman’s second toe during her wedding ceremony, applies pressure to nerve centres that stimulate her body!
Soumya notes economic prosperity generally takes people away from religion, but here people want to discover their roots. “After attaining prosperity, a person wants to know about his spiritual self. Questions like why I am here?”
There is a school of thought, which believes that more festivals mean more holidays and loss of work. “It’s the bandhs that are much more responsible for the loss of GDP. Festivals keep the common man charged. If the babus don’t idle away on the working days we can pack in 10 more festivals.”
ANUJ KUMAR
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