It’s surprising how culture, traditions, festivities, languages and another innumerable aspects of life, change within a stretch of hundred kms in our country. Very recently I saw a group of people high and happy on alcohol, dancing to the tunes of portable drums (more like the dhols), bursting crackers all along the roads. Unaware of what was happening; impulsively I asked my friend and then came his reply, “They are celebrating death”.
The way the dead are carried to their burial grounds in the southern hemisphere of our country is fairly intriguing and has a set of interesting connotations linked to it. Though it is practiced only by the lower strata of the financial divide, it is a common site. Logical interpretation of as to why is it done so, are quite thought provoking.
• The close ones celebrate while carrying the dead, to let the soul liberate on a happy note. The ambience of happiness, joy and euphoria would enable the soul seeking for the same, achieve it sooner.
• As only the financially weak partake in it, they do so to celebrate the end of another man’s struggle in life. They celebrate, to pay homage to the way the dead had fought with the absurdities and birth-based biasness of life, they celebrate because no more will the dead have to loose to the inequalities of destiny.
• Another school of thought revolves around the axiom of the Satanic influences being shooed away by the crackers and the Holy angels being pleased and drawn closer by the music. Celebrating for the soul to attain Moksha, celebrating for the soul to reach the safe and worshipped hands.
However and whatever be the reason for the act, it makes perfect sense to celebrate, in DEATH.
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7 comments:
mucha! celebration of death is not restricted to just these points. there are so many.
for example, in africa, they celebrate death not because of any of these reasons - no socio-economic faults, no warding off evil.
they celebrate because the mother earth has taken away what it had given. and they celebrate because mother earth had given them such a good gift.
but, yes, the truth remains that not celebrating death is primarily the realm of the "upper" echelons of society that we are part of.
hey its not exactly that only the financially weak celebrate death. Even in upper caste north Indian villages, they celebrate death by distributing sweets on the 13th day after the death. Even i think that we should celebrate the end of a life that was good in more ways than we can perceive....however the thought of departing from someone we are so used to see and talk overwhelms all other emotions....and even that is quite logical, isn't it ?
- Rahul Bansal
Mr. Hairy Snail, I was not trying to cumulate the reasons for celebrating death. The tradition was a not seen one and the reasons put up are a fiction of my mind except the last one which was discovered while having a conversation with a friend of mine.
Hey Mr. Bansal, celebrating on the 13th day is rather different from celebrating on the way to the burial grounds. It's human emotions we are talking about, time fades them away, it takes more courage to sing, dance and be merry at the very moment after life is withdrawn from a near and dear one. And ya moaning is very logical, m not trying to go against that axiom, its just that there could be numerous reasons to celebrate in it, so why not do so. It's all a figment of thought, if from the very begining of life we would ve been told to celebrate the end of life it would ve been so..!
lol. a friend of yours it seems.
it's not about cumulating aashim, you did it already, perhaps unknowlingly. but the point to question is whether celebration is called for. you and i agree. but what of those others who do not? can they be segregated as the "rich"? do the "rich" not follow the same (or similar) traditions to those who celebrate death? have we actually ever been able to celebrate death ourselves?
i have not.
I ve not too and neither do I say that it is easy to do. It's just that the plane on which I was thinking and saw the incident happen pertains to the financially weak, it was not attempted to be the criteria to segregate people as rich and poor.
actually, its an old indian tradition, doesn matter which caste/class etc u belong to. It changed though, history!! And the ones u see dancin and singin and drunk arent usually th relatives, they are called to do that. And we are supposed to celebrate death, cos according to the indians(ancient), there is life after death, and for the reasons u mentioned too.
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