India, The Land of Festivals!

India, The Land of Festivals

Kumbhmela and Jaipur literary festival enthrall large gathering of people early this year. 

India is a land of festivals, which attracts large gatherings of people, for an allotted period of time. India loves gathering. People always find an excuse to gather. Families gather for festivals, and rituals (marriage, funeral or birth) usually, but now there are more, and varied functions to gather, and the crowds are as varied. 

I grew up attending a variety of festivals in and around my home town. Religious festivals, drama festivals, river festivals, temple festivals, and school festivals, in addition to the family celebrations. Every festival is celebrated with great fan fare and reverence. Each temple, each goddess, and god have annual festivals, so also the trees and rivers in our home town. Every river in India has its own festival, although the greatest is the Kumbhmela. Floods are scary every year. However, I watched it every year, when the flood waters come into town, families, especially women and children visit the river and pay their respects with flower offerings.

Festivals of any sort are a big draw for crowds in India. In the recent years there is a new genre of festivals added to this usual festival fraternity, the literary festival. Major cities such as Jaipur, Kochin, Calcutta become the vaunted destinations for literary connoisseurs, and enthusiasts alike, while literary circles in smaller cities are organizing their own festivals of this sort. A well known cousin of the literary festivals is Film festivals of India. Of course Film festivals are well established and well celebrated in India. Film actors are larger than life, and could turn crowds at their every move. Nonetheless, something similar is happening with literary festivals. Controversial authors, scholars and TV dignitaries (Salman Rushdie, ... and scholars of repute such as Gayatri Spivak) are adding the spark of their own to the success of literary festivals. The fanfare, and hungama (remember Oprah's visit to Jaipur literary festival last year!) in bringing electronic media personalities (connected mostly with TV and internet personalities although sometimes it may involve some film personalities) and literary personalities (writers of various kinds- academic, news, and fiction). This is a welcome turn of events for India as the literacy levels of India improved tremendously over the last two decades with English as the medium of education. Hopefully this trend continues and grows multiplying the books and their writers.

The literary festival fever is also spreading to Pakistan and Bangladesh recently, although it would be interesting to see how long they would last, before they are attacked by fundamentalist groups. In a country where music, and theater celebrations became rare, or a big security issue for the police forces, it is hard to imagine that the literary festivals would  have a different outcome in the foreseeable future.