Pujas in Delhi

"'The indians are the Italians of Asia....They are both people of the Madonna - they demand a goddess, even if the religion does not provide one. Every man in both countries is a singer when he is happy, and every woman is a dancer when she walks to the shop at the corner."
-Shantaram

The pujas in Delhi are a grand affair, getting bigger every year. The roads to the area where my parents live was closed to traffic, so I got out at the main road and started walking with my luggage. The mood in the streets was festive. Even though it was midnight, there were people everywhere, dressed in their best. Makeshift cafes had come up on every street corner. The sidewalks were full of hawkers selling anything from straw hats,jewellery to cheap toys for kids. Near a playground that featured on of the prominent pujas in the area, I passed a large live sony display relaying the events inside. A guy with an electric guitar was jumping around on stage. It could have been any other music video on MTV. In the ten years since I had been gone,things had changed so much, asI discovered over the next few days.

Everything now had a multicultural- even perhaps international influence. Contemporary Hindi music had replaced the worn out Bengali songs that I remember from the early nineties. Some of the musical events were in both languages, as a large part of the audience were now hindi speaking. The large TV displays, wireless handset wielding show organizers, SMS voting for the best artwork, women dressed not just in traditional attire but in Britney Spears inspired creations-made the whole experience more contemporary. Even the "prasad" served in the day had become more health friendly- consisting mainly of whole fruits and missing out the sweets. It made me happy. Cultures that are inward looking are heading towards decay. But what I find in India (well Delhi at least) is a promising mix, cultural and language boundaries are disappearing, and people are more aware of the rest of the world.

The domestic help, shopkeepers in the area- the lower income groups who ten years ago
would have been easily identifiable by what they wore- were no longer distinguishable from the affluent upper upper. They all looked clean and presentable, educated- and seemed to convey an attitude of hope rather than one resigned to fate. If this can happen in Delhi, perhaps it can be done for the rest of India.

I went out next evening with some old friend who still live there. The hawkers on the street were selling horns made of a rubber baloon and cardboard and we bought some, joining the other horn blowers in the crowd filled streets that connected the centers of festivities. It was the Night of the Horns. Soon the night was filled with the sound of these horns,one responding to the other, going on in a continueous moan long after the cultural events had ended.