New
Two weeks into the Gregorian new year, and hold on, here it is again! Tamil New Year, followed by the new year celebrations of a myriad other communities. It seems as if it’s the new year every month – and why ever not? It’s perfectly logical to celebrate new beginnings, a new harvest, the advent of spring or even landfall in a new country. In this wonderful country of three growing seasons, a winter and summer harvest (if I remember correctly the chapter on agriculture from my geography text book) and weather that ranges (just to take one month as an example) from January snow in the north to a retreating monsoon in the south-east to dry cool weather in the west, it is only right that we should celebrate the resurgence of life and bountiful nature every month or so. Also, it’s never too late to make, keep and break new year resolutions…and then start all over again.
A South Indian Parsi brought up in the best of liberal traditions in a Madras of the eighties can, and does, celebrate many new years. Some Parsis celebrate new year three times – on 31st December, they put on their glad rags and celebrate a commonality with other party hearty people across the world – a rock n roll band belting out Tutti Frutti and Jailhouse Rock, as if the sixty odd years since the heydey of rock n roll have never been and gone, a dance floor under the stars, gleaming bare shoulders and snazzy ties, the bar that is open almost all night – Happy New Year!! Much air kissing and hugs to bring in the the first day of the first month in the calendar. Then in March, there is Jamshedi Navroze, celebrating the advent of spring in the land of their ancestors, Persia. There, a hard, cold winter softens and gives in to (in my imagination at least) rose buds and apple blossoms. This is really a climate based new year, celebrated on the Spring Equinox. Finally, in August arrives another Navroze – a commemoration of landfall made in this generous land, storm battered refugees fleeing from Pars who found a renewed future on the shores of Gujarat perhaps 1300 years ago. A story is told of the local Rana, confronted by a weapon bearing and fierce warrior race, unable to communicate through language, eloquently indicating his inability to allow them to settle in his lands. He offers to the warrior priest a cup brimming over with milk. No room for more, he signals. The priest carefully mixes in sugar, without spilling a drop. We will sweeten but not burden your land, he responds. The Rana relents and the refugees, forsaking their weapons, settle in Gujarat, forever after a peaceful community that will refuse to convert any local to their religion, in honour of a long ago promise made to a kind king. They celebrate the day of their arrival in India as the New Year in their new and forever homeland. (At least, this is the version I prefer to the one of maintaining racial purity, the pursuit of which has been taken to ridiculously gender biased, scientifically outdated and hypocritical extremes.)
Today of course is Pongal, Tamil New Year. To a Madras girl who left home twenty seven years ago, now a New Year in name only. But this morning, as I drove in the bylanes of Sion, a South Indian flavoured suburb of Bombay, these young people made me smile and miss Madras so. First, a young girl in pattu pavade (silk half saree worn over a gorgeous skirt and blouse), hair braided with mallipu, demure and shyly aware of her beauty, making her way to college. She is such a lovely sight to see, I slow down and smile at her. Behind her walk a gang of teenage boys. Their crisp white veshtis are rolled up to knee level, they all wear shirts with sleeves carefully rolled up to match. They are somewhat self conscious, walking carefully, possibly praying that their dads have tied the veshtis securely.
And then, best of all, a group of young boys. Eight or nine years old, they all wear matching dark green veshtis with gold trim, white kurtas and the most outrageous dark glasses. They are full of spunk and mischief, as they swagger down the road to school. I watch this little fashion parade in my rear view mirror for a moment or two before I turn the corner.
All the sights and smells and tastes of Pongal in Madras come back in a wave of longing. The smell of sandalwood and turmeric interwoven with the sweet fragrance of gundumalli, the taste of sakkarai pongal, the freshly drawn kolam in the wet mud outside homes, the sheaves of rice and stalks of sugarcane, the cows decked out in their best finery.
As I sit in office, feeling a little lonely, the til gud laddoos are brought around. It’s Makar Sankranti. The wind changes direction today, the kites fight to be free of their strings (here’s praying for a manja free and injury free festival), and the cool of the winter air will now slowly warm until Holi arrives in a blast of hot air.
New Year. A time for new beginnings, new hopes and new resolutions. It’s never too late to start again; after all Diwali, another New Year, arrives as late as November now..and there isn’t any rule book that says you can’t begin again any day you choose. Make your own new day. Celebrate turning over a new leaf. Keep hope fresh and alive. The old, the cruel, the dark: these too will pass. The new day has no use for the worn emotion, the old hatreds. It must let in the light and kindle hope, it must celebrate love and life. I write this with conviction because I saw it this morning, that new day, in the faces of the young.