Indian tales and festivities
Well hello, ladies and gents! It’s me, back again, did you miss me — well now I sound like the ‘Lady Whistledown’ — it is also true that I’ve been binge watching Queen Charlotte and rewatching Bridgerton for umm… I don’t think I feel very comfortable telling you how many times I’ve rewatched the series. For one thing I don’t want to be diagnosed with some kind “illness” (but cut me some slack. It’s my favourite series and I have some personal stuff that I’ve been going through, so i needed something comforting).
Anyways if you see any references and fancy words, you know that I’ve been living in the regency era, you have been warned! Enough about me and my unhealthy obsession with Bridgerton, I’ve got an article to write, for Christ’s sake!
Today I’m gonna entertain you with another article on my roots, India. Before you say it, I know! I know I’ve been writing only about my culture and I would understand if you’d rather read another article, but give me a chance, ok. Look, let me do this: “I promise that hereby I won’t focus only on articles that talk about the wonderful India”. (we’ll see about it :))
After my very truthful and heartwarming promise, I think I’ll start telling you about a tale my grandmother used to tell me when I was a child, the legend of Diwali or Deepavali (if you are from southern India). Even though my family is not Hindu, this festival is celebrated by many and the tale is widely known.
Diwali is a Sanskrit word that translates to the festival of light, and it is one of the most important festival to Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism — It symbolises the spiritual “victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance”.
The festival is based on the Hindu lunisolar calendar (a very fancy calendar that combines the Moon’s phase and the Sun’s phase according to the position of the Sun in the Earth sky, it’s common in many oriental cultures), so it doesn’t have a specific date per se, however it usually falls between mid-October and mid-November.
During these five days of festivities, us Indians overdo everything, from illuminating the temples and houses with diyas (oil lamps), candles and lanterns, rangolis (intricate and colourful drawing is front the house), flowers (mostly marigolds and jasmine) to running around with colourful clothing, severing and EATING warm and spicy food, and finally enjoying, together with your families, fireworks shows in each and every corner of the city.
And you might be wondering why? Well, because we are built like that :)
Since I gave you a brief rundown on what happens and what I have personally seen during these days, I want to talk about how this celebration started and why it is such an important one.
There are many legends around this sacred festival, however today I will be telling you about the one my amma (how i call my grandmama) told me when she would tuck me in my bed and also the most widely known tale, the Ramayana (a Sanskrit epic poem which follows Prince (Lord) Rama in his quest)
Said so, we have to go way way back in time, when the Gods walked the earth…wait wait wait I’ve never written any book but I HAVE read a lot of them so now i’m going to jump straight into it, soooo keep up.
“Exiled from the kingdom of Ayodhya by his own father King Dasharatha, Rama, his wife Sita and his brother, Laxmana, face various hardships as they travel through the forests to find shelter. Sita was Rama’s beloved wife and daughter of King Janaka of Mithila and she was epitome of womanly purity and virtue.”
I know, I know you want to know why they were exiled? Believe it or not that was the first question I asked my amma, anyways Shri Rama was banished and denied to be the crowned king because he was plotting against his stepmother, Kaikeyi — let’s only hope she was evil.
Moving on “ in exile, the evil Ravana, King of the Demons, who had 10 heads and 20 arms, spied on Rama’s beautiful wife Sita in the forest. He fell madly in love with her and wanted to make her his. With a lust filled heart he started scheming, so that he could have her all to himself. One fine day, Ravana ordered his servant Maricha to disguise himself as a golden deer and tempt Rama and Lakshman away from Sita matha. Lakshman drew a circle in the dust around Sita to protect her and told her not to step out of the circle.
But Ravana cleverly impersonated himself as an old beggar man, and begged Sita for food and drink. Sita took pity on the old guy and stepped out of the circle. The beggar man turned back into the Demon king and caught Sita in his arms, taking her into his magic flying chariot. Sita struggled against him and begged him to leave her, let’s say it didn’t work. Jatayu the divine bird valiantly tried to fight off Ravana, however the powerful demon king mercilessly clipped his wings and took Sita across the sea to his kingdom of Lanka (now known as Sri Lanka).
Nonetheless Sita throws her necklace on the ground, in the hopes that her beloved husband will come to save her”.
Ai-yai-yai, so much drama, so much passion, so much confusion and so much at stake! I never thought that such an important festival had so much background to it. I don’t want to hold you too much with my comments soooo… let’s dive back into it. “Rama, devastated with the event that took place (sorrows, sorrows, prayers ;)), goes on the journey to retrieve his precious wife. With the help of Sugriva, the king of the Vanaras, and his trusted general Hanuman ( the monkey commander and he is considered to be a partial-avatar of Lord Shiva, so he has the head of a monkey and a body of a human), they build a bridge of stones over the sea to reach Lanka –the stones were blessed with buoyancy, so they did not sink.
In his quest Shri Rama, Laxmana and Hanuman went through many obstacles and adventure, but finally they reached the palace — where Ravana doesn’t let Sita go that easily. Rama declares war against the demon king, after profuse fighting in the good over evil war, Shri Rama kills Ravana, and rescues his beloved wife.”
Finally, all of this for a woman? Kind of romantic and cheesy might I say. But what does this have to do with the lights and the fireworks? Well… the story doesn’t end here my friend. “Victorious, Shri Rama, Sita Mathaa, and Laxmana return to Ayodhya. To welcome them, the people of the kingdom clean their houses and place oil lamps to light their path to the palace. And to celebrate this glorious day they light up a scarecrow with 10 heads and 20 arms to show that good always prevails over evil.”
Well my friends this is all it is to it, an epic love story with all the possible drama! I honestly don’t know how to conclude this article… Maybe that the lighting of the effigy of Ravana still happens in many places of India? yeah maybe that! Many cities in India celebrated Diwali not only with decorating their home with clay lamps, rangoli and fireworks but also synchronising-ly lighting up the effigy of Ravana to conclude this glorious day.
And might I say it is beautiful to watch… until next time. Will I write another article on India? I gess we’ll have to wait and see!
