Losing sparkle

At this moment when we have celebrated Dashain and Tihar, we can say that we have bidden good bye to the major festivals of this year. I too celebrated it but this year when I went home to celebrate it, what I felt was the charm of the festivals has been declining than those days when I was a child. When the festival ends, the reminisces of the enjoyment and the recreation would be there with us during our childhood but this year I couldn't feel it. Upon inquiry with some of my friends, I found that they too felt the same.

When the festive mood knocks our door, there is excitement, planning, preparation and saving. We start to be busy with so many things to celebrate the festival. The festive mood is high with Dashain and Tihar when kids and adults are seeking for fun and long holiday to rest their job burden for a while. We also take Dashain as synonymous to swing rides, fluttering kites, buying new clothes, playing cards, tika, jamara and the blessings. Similarly we take Tihar as the most colorful festival where there are lights, flowers, decoration. Well, how can we forget 'Deusi' and 'Bhailo'. But this year, I missed the colorful kites fluttering in the sky, rote pings (swings) that used to be the beauty of our yards and play grounds and not only the kites and swings I too missed the excitement of people celebrating the festival. Not only that much I even couldn't find children eager to go for 'Deusi' and 'Bhailo'.  

I still remember my childhood days when festivals used to be live, exciting and completely participative among the family members, relatives and friends with full of cultural values. Every morning and evening in each and every place, the folk lures, tunes and vibes used to attract all of us. Festivals really used to be a medium of sharing our joy and delight where every people whom we used to meet had the same joyous mood.

But now, I don't feel the same mood. What I felt this time is that our celebration and participation is gradually diminishing. Yes, there have been some sorts of advancement in its celebration and the most important part was that the celebration was not culturally valued rather it was taken just as a way of showcasing it in social media.  What I felt was only the Facebook walls were colorful during the festival which too had missed the true feeling of celebration.

At some point I made my opinion that may be festival is joyous just during childhood. Eventually, I changed this opinion too after talking to some of the children as I found that kids are also not so much interested on it now a days. Though they have blamed homework and assignments as their lack of interest, what I feel is that these are just the arguments to beat around the bush; may be we as their guardian are not being able to cultivate the feeling of celebration and the importance of it in them from our behaviors. The fault is in our way of perceiving the festivals which our kids are learning.

This behavior is related not only with the festivals of Hindus but with all other festivals and cultures of other religion as well. Every curriculum has a chapter on festivals and its values but we will never understand the value of celebrating these festivals just by going through the lines carved in the book; so it seems that now it's a high time that we start realizing this issue otherwise, if our festive celebrations would keep on losing its sparkle in the same way, then the day is not far when we would only read about the festivals and its celebration in the holy books and our future generation would be blaming us for not preserving it.