By Nawaz Islam
The other side of Joy (Na kawei ka liang jong ka jingkmen) The sheets are drawn upon celebrations that gripped the city
for over a week. Starting from the ‘symbolical’ Christmas to the ‘diabolical’ New Year, we all made merry. We sang, we partied (It’s ignorable that we never worked hard) and we, let loose.
Overcoming the hangover and regaining sense in the context of arguments and views, there lies no harm in shredding the fibres of joyous celebrations to analyze the forgotten context and content every single time.
Is the current trend of celebrations during Christmas really about celebrating the joy and happiness associated with the birth of Jesus Christ or does the excitement merely revolve around the hype of a commercialized and overtly emphasized Santa?
The main virtues of the holidays have gone from an idealistic white wonderland, to a migraine-causing festival of greed. The Christmas of the past was once a beautiful celebration of the birth of Christ. Families would come together to enjoy the holidays in a peaceful, loving environment but with every passing year, the ‘sub-standard’ families shy away from celebrating in the open for the fear of being looked down upon.
This compilation of words does not intent to hit out at a particular section but human perceptions in general. Kindness and sympathy are as non-existent as a real Santa in the face of this Earth. There is no harm sparing a thought to answer some of the basic and yet very pertinent questions:
1. Is business and money the prime reason for Christmas festivities to last for over a month?
2. Does the lengthening of the holiday season proportionately spread out the joy and tradition associated with Christmas?
3. Are we turning into mere artefacts of pomp and gaiety forgetting the humble message?
4. Is Christmas all about adorning oneself with the best of clothes and scents rather than filling someone else’s life with a sense of fulfilment ad an aura of joy?
5. (offbeat) Do we really need cakes after cakes after cakes?
The onset of this season is evident from the carefree spurge into shopping that entails spending thousands after thousands to be in the devoted race called ‘celebrations’. The Lord arranged for his son, Christ to be born in abject poverty, primarily because he came to give hope to the hopeless and bring cheer to the poor.
It is acceptable that we cannot enact the grief and poverty struck scene by walking around in tattered clothes but we can surely spare a thought for the helpless and destitute.
The pre-Christmas gimmick of distributing sweets and gifts among hospital patients and among a few children in some schools is not enough for appreciation that we as a society treat everyone as equals. What is more amusing is that such supposed ‘acts of kindnesses’ actually has to be taken up in the Newspapers for spreading the message, “Look…we are doing this.” Why do acts of kindness have to show up annually? We can surely spread joy many times in a year and not necessarily wait for the red-suit day to hand over gifts for the less privileged.
Nothing to be proud of, everyone is the same. The doors to the house of God remain open only to the clean, polished and refined worshippers and not for the dirt covered children of a lesser God.
If this is not enough, let’s see the charm that comes with the culmination of a calendar!
Tools to welcome New Year have been the same for ages. Bottles, glasses and men of all shapes and sizes, interlinked and intertwined, ready to herald the dawn of a new beginning.
The end of an arbitrary calendar which will simply start all over again has for time immemorial been celebrated with hazy eyes, broken bottles and damaged bumpers. The situation here is worse, with vomiting being nearby labelled as the coolest act of a guy in the New Year.
With the district administration failing to call a dry day on New Year’s Eve but funnily on January 1, liquid poured from barrels and drenched the much anticipating crowd for whom this was another rebellious revelling night after December 25.
The HNYF’s latest seizure of over a thousand litres of illicit liquor in Nongpoh, Pahamrioh and Marngar is probably just a drop in an ocean of fermented pleasure.
The outcome was in pieces. Broken bottles strewn across the road, flattened by a zooming car, close pals in sudden intense discussions with arms around the shoulders and of course an air of incomplete words. Can we improve?
Stirring up a drunken brawl is the next coolest thing that can be anticipated a little after the clock strikes 12. Responsible adult drinkers! Please…even a child sucking on a plastic nipple knows when to hit the brakes.
You name it, you have it. Tiny groups engrossed in intense arguments at IGP, Police Bazaar, Malki, Laitumkhrah, to name a few, raking up unsolved issues and trying to get his ‘valid’ points through. The most interesting part here is that a miniature assembly session takes place with one volunteering to be the pacifier.
Don’t be fooled…they usually end with hugs, and best wishes echoing for a long time.
The question here is do we even have to point fingers at them…justifying merry making? No we have no right, not until it’s a threat to our lives. The policy stands simple in today’s context, ‘be in or be out’. If you can’t shake that hip while drenching yourself in sweet poison, you are equipped enough to be labelled an outcast.
Moral responsibility is happily thrown out the back door.
Well, the sound of a broken bottle being drowned by another breaking might be cool…I don’t know!
The whizzing of cars in all directions might be exciting…how will someone thumping keyboards know?
A lot depends on our perception of the limitless ‘wants’.
1. Do we want to wake up feeling kissed in the head by an earthmover or wake up with a fresh mind to make resolutions…no matter how fake it is!
2. Do we want bedsheets reminding of scented remnants of the previous night or wake up to the aroma of a fresh day?
3. Do we want to carry on feeling apologetic or make a final difference?
Change is just a word so long it does not mould into an action. Fun is justified, we all need a day off but should it be at the expense of making our Neighbourhood famous with filth and acts that are a million miles from being moral? Well, you got a year and so be the change. Don’t quit saying 20(13) is UNLUCKY!