It’s the merry-time to celebrate and welcome prosperity and joy of Christmas & New Year with enthu and gusto. I was reading today’s newspaper and realized how India and its secular demography has transformed itself in substantially healthy ways for the betterment of the country and wove the fine cultural carpet to a fantastic finish.
If we reminiscence the 90s or its precedents, before we hooked up to the electronic modes of communication, we can easily realize how Christmas and its Santa Claus were like a aural and visual treat to us. Earlier decades can easily be qualified as a no-no to all festive days which were non-conforming to ones religious calendar. But today the time is clocking at a different pace and has made people overlook such religious disparities. With each passing day we are conforming more to being Unity in Diversity. Do you feel ashamed of yourself or for your community to celebrate such occasions with your friends? Accolades to the work-culture in our offices too which has augmented such secular traits in us by celebrating with events like “Secret Santa.”
I can see it lucidly that the foremost reason for such a change in the mind-set of people is the presence of social networking sites, such as Facebook, Orkut, Google+, etc, and mobile phones (especially the SMS services). With such tech-motivators alive in our daily lives, we feel all comfortable and happy to share with the revellers our cheers too. Earlier people used to watch DD News or listen Radio, the only sources of news in their times, to see/hear President or PM conveying their warm greetings to the people of India on the eve of such great days, but today with such a deep penetration of technologies in our lives, anybody hardly cares if President/PM ever wished. Before their wishes, there’s already a flood in society on people’s walls/twitters/inboxes, etc. Everything is all gung-ho. And it is good, indeed very good.
These pics easily support me the way India is transforming and how more tolerant we-the People of India-are becoming; another reason for the change-tolerance. My friend disturbs me in the wee hours of the day to wish me Merry Christmas or say Eid Mubarak, it doesn’t hurt my sentiments, but bring a smile on my face and I reply back. People are tagged in their FB profiles, comments over-flow, but the joy never stops enthralling the minds of the people. I want to wish Dr Kapil Sibal a Merry Christmas; hope nobody calls me anti-religious. But I wish that people should be more rational in what they promote and like. Would you call it being anti-something if somebody decorates his/her Christmas tree with Ganesha or Hanuman toy idols as mentioned in an article in today’s TOI-An Indian Christmas? And it’s funny to see how Santa’s traditional sledge has been replaced with a scooter and reindeer substituted by my Mr Singh (anonymous).
I think those, like the Russian who condemns Bhagwad Gita by interpreting it as “extremist” in his perception, or countries like France and Belgium to ban burqa, need to take a big teaching from Indians. Nobody was born with a name or a religion; it’s us who have labelled them with. It is nice to see Obama greeting Indians on Diwali. Expats are well-tuned to the Indian ways, could we ever this imagine in times without this social media and interactivity? Live to learn is to learn to live. No day is greater than the day we are happy, no religion is greater than the religion of brotherhood and togetherness.
Looking forward to reading more. Great article post. Want more.
My pleasure