Celebrations

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 16; the sixteenth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Whenever there is a day of any significance, we always ask our peers, “How did you celebrate it?” What we fail to realise is, the important question really is, “What did you celebrate?”

In a diverse and multicultural country such as ours, festivals bring together the the various diversities together. During Diwali, you'd see all sorts of Indian people swarming together and buying firecrackers, to be burnt following evening. They burn them together, are the best of friends for an excellent evening, and then go their separate ways once again. They forget each others' names; they forget each others' faces. What did they really celebrate? Diwali? Was celebrating the homecoming of Rama that important? Shouldn't it be infinitely more important to celebrate brotherhood? It's a pity people don't realise that.

This Diwali, I didn't touch fireworks, not that I don't like to, but because I just didn't have the time. My celebrations began quite a few days before the 5th of November. I decided to fall in love, watch my closest friends take one of the toughest tests in the country and then take it myself, and then the day of Diwali itself. I'll proceed in that very order as life needs a sense of governance.

I'd never imagined that lighting a candle, reading a card, exchanging kisses and words of love and simply sitting on a lonesome bench for hours by the water can be anything like a form of celebration. Celebration isn't always about pomp and show. Love gives us a sense of peace and tranquility like no other. The purest of emotions, it is always within us, always deep enough to incite the best of thoughts and the wildest of ideas. Try celebrating love.


The night before I was to take the CAT (Common Admission Test) on the 3rd of November, a couple of friends of mine returned after having the exam themselves on the 2nd. They hadn't done too well, it seemed and wanted to drink over it. They had no intention to call me to join in because I should have been de-stressing for the next day, which is exactly why I joined them myself.
Drinking good whisky in a bar and getting a little tipsy with you best friends repeatedly telling you to maintain control (because there's a test tomorrow) and talking about everything all at the same time; that's celebration. What did we celebrate? I have no clue. But I know that the six of us that were together then and drank together, and spoke about CAT, fights, girlfriends, food, more whisky and other nonsense are close mates and the drinks and the smoke was dedicated not to a failed or upcoming exam, but to friendship.

I'm a final year engineering student in college and it was the first time I couldn't go home for Diwali, owing to my hectic schedule. All of us friends were together, though my girlfriend was away. We decided to do something very different this year, the last year we would all be in one place.
Have you ever driven 40 kilometers on a motorcycle to a little district town to watch a lousy movie? Did you ever stand at a railway crossing and stand on the railway tracks and light a cigarette and then smoke it as the train approached from afar? Did you ever drink beer with your closest friends on the highway, home being only 15 minutes away? I did that. And after coming back, I called my loving girlfriend and let myself get drowned in her tender warm voice. That was my Diwali and I celebrated it well enough to make it my best and certainly the most meaningful ever.

My celebrations have been going on for a while now. I don't see any final stage for them either.



I celebrated friendship; the best form of bonding between a group of individuals who have lived together for years and shared each others' pain and glory.
I celebrated love; the purest, the most inviolable form of emotion between two souls that can possibly exist. It was bliss.



It isn't about a festival. It's about the value of human relations. Every day that we live in this universe, we live in the company of someone; someone important. Every single day that we work and toil and dance in glee is about them. So let's dedicate each day of our lives to those that we love and those that we should remember, yet miss.

So tell me, reader, what did you celebrate?

Happy Diwali to you all.

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