Harvest = New Year

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celebration, Cupitonians, Festival of Light, Festivals, Holi, Holidays, India, New Year, Renewal, Spring, Ugadi, Vishu

In terms of festivals, Indians have a whole host of practical ones. We love to celebrate; we have over 50 festivals (read holidays) in a year, not counting the secular, bank and national holidays. There is an old saying that we are all Indian first, our religions next. While we follow the Roman calendar, the actual New Year’s we celebrate follow our agricultural cycles. The first harvest of the year is in March and April (our spring) and we celebrate it with much grandeur, so much so that there are different versions of these fests that are being adopted into other cultures (Ana showed me this amazing one called the Colour Run)

Jacaranda Trees in Bloom in Bangalore. Source.

We only have 3 major seasons in India. Summer, Winter and Monsoon. Our winters aren’t severe but are drastically colder than our long, hot summer months and like with most countries, sometime in March, the leafless trees start sprouting fresh green leaves and flowers of the brightest colours are in bloom. Riding around town is such a distraction!

Depending on which province in India you are from, you celebrate one of these festivals, although, if we are to be honest, we celebrate all of it. Give us a reason to celebrate and we will do it in style. Our three major harvest/spring festivals are –

Holi – The Festival of Colour

The myriad of colours on our clothes, at the end of the day, always matches the colours on the trees. Source.

To say a big HELLO to Spring, we celebrate Holi – it is our Festival of Colour. Holi is portrayed in a lot of pop culture movies and TV shows and is basically a festival in which we throw colour at each other and more often than not, a water balloon. And as with any Indian festival, there is a lot of dancing and singing and food made with freshly harvested vegetables.

Ugadi – The Harvest Festival

Celebrated mostly in the south of India, the word literally means “The start of an era”. Like Holi, the festival is designed for us to celebrate the first harvest of the year. We celebrate by starting the day by eating fresh green neem leaves, jaggery and raw mango. The combination of bitter, sweet and sour is symbolic not only of a fresh crop full of health benefits but also of life itself and how all of those tastes is what makes life as beautiful as it is. The festival is also ushered in by binging on freshly made sweet treats and salads.

Vishu – The Festival of Renewal

This is also a South Indian festival, celebrated in Kerala, a province most fondly called – God’s own country.  The harvest in Kerala comes a little later and is celebrated in April. While they leave the “being colourful” bit to the wonderful scenery nature provides in those areas, they celebrate Vishu with light and fireworks. This occasion is used to buy new clothes and gadgets to symbolize renewal and an auspicious start to a new year reflects how the rest of the year will transpire. The best part of the festival (at least according to every youngster who celebrates this festival) is the tradition of giving money. You seek the blessing of an older member of the family and in return, they give you fresh notes and newly minted coins.

What are some of the festivals you celebrate in your country that is harvest related?

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Ways to tell you’ve met an Indian

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Asia, Culture, India

My li’l sister is marrying a British Boy in two months. Now, we’ve both been brought up in a near global fashion – what with our parents being globe-trotters and having many friends from overseas visiting and staying with us. Sometimes though, no matter how international our upbringing, India seeps in. We don’t really notice it as much till we’re in the middle of sharing some story or the other over a drink and we suddenly realise, the other guy would probably not understand why we were so bizarre and still not sound like this guy.

But there are ways, no matter how deceptive the accent or the looks, that you can spot an Indian.

We never throw anything away – 

Broken china, Pepsi bottles and take away containers included. Perhaps it’s an unwritten rule that you never throw away anything that is gifted or that has been of really good use but no matter how much I have tried to get my extended family to either re-cycle or throw away their old stuff, including buying them new and fancier crockery, they only get put in those infamous show cases.

Our house is a shrine – 

Like all Indians, we have a “showcase” bang in the middle of our living and dining rooms filled with things that we don’t need, never use and those that keep you up at night with their stares. And since we’re catholic, most of the presents we receive which are then hoarded makes it feel like we could kill Damien Omen even before he enters our house.

Yes, you can thank me later! 🙂

I’m going to speed it up

Previously – I was beamed to the mother ship and thought I’d never see humans again till a near accident (of someone else) showed me that I wasn’t so far from home after all.

I was picked up from the infamous Fraport by a colleague of my dad’s – N.  In a B.M.W! I couldn’t believe my eyes and I couldn’t wait to gloat to my friends and family. This was back in the time before I had a Facebook account or a blog, but thankfully I had a camera phone. Now, BMWs are pretty commonplace in Germany but in India, it’s usually only really successful CEOs and Bollywood actors who drove them. Our idea of common cars were this – sure they weren’t the best looking ones but it survived for decades on our roads and that was all you needed in a car.

Back then, probably our most affordable and reliable car. Source

I know, I know. It looks like the kind of vehicle you use to kidnap someone. But I came to love its bucket seats! Source

Imagine my surprise when the car had amazingly comfortable seats and functioning seatbelts. Not only that, the car windows didn’t roll down, they had some automatic buttons that I had to struggle not to play with because of course I was a mature teenager. Right? Of course. What shocked me the most was not the music player that could play CDs (we still used cassettes for everything!) but that there was some sort of screen in the middle of the dashboard that actually SPOKE.

Oh.My.God.

A car that spoke, showed routes and even gave traffic updates and expected time of arrival. While I was busy looking out the windows, wondering at this nation that was obviously run by robots, I noticed lanes with speed limits. And the top speed? See, I know Schumacher was at the best of his game back then but an entire nation of racers? BUT, there were no accidents, everyone kept to their lanes and when people slowed down for a traffic light, they kept a meter distance between each car.

What was this country?

This is how our disciplined lanes and speed limits look like

One of our more bizarre warning signs/milestones

Culture Matters

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Europe, Travel

My first overseas trip was to Europe. You must understand this little thing about India, it’s not very kind to young girls who want to travel independently and that want also to volunteer. I suppose I would be anxious as well if I were sending my daughter to some foreign country where I have no control over their safety. “Volunteer? Alone? NO WAY!”

Luckily, I was brought up in a multi-cultural background where we grew up with people from different backgrounds shuffling in and out of our home and my parents had been in Europe so many times that it was like sending me to my grammie’s house. And so after several days of lectures on how not to look like a tourist so I’m not scammed, how to pack minimally (my dad’s a bit of a travel guru having spent his whole life travelling from place to place. He had pegged packing down to an art!) and how to brace myself for culture shock, I took off for my grand adventure.

Landing in the Frankfurt Airport was like landing on Mars. Compared to the airport we had then in Bangalore, which was more like 3 large rooms attached to a couple of long runways, walking inside the Frankfurt Airport was literally like walking into a spaceship. There were hardly any people and having just a few hours earlier come from a city of 8 million people, the silence and the lack of people was eerie.

Source

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And EVERYTHING was automated and in German. Is this what culture shock was to feel like? Your jaws on the floor, walking around in a trance like zombie state? The immigration guy (with a full uniform and stern look) had a space-age looking logo that said “Fraport” (which I initially thought was his name). He took my passport, looked at me, stamped it and slid it across to me without so much as a smile or eye contact. I had to resist an urge to stand in attention and salute. Looked like the right thing to do. No? Apparently not.

After walking for hours and passing by a McLaren F1 Road Car display a million times (this one may have been on purpose), I finally found the exit where I was supposed to meet a friend and that was the end of my culture shock. If you’ve ever been outside Fraport, you’d know what I mean. It’s crowded and noisy and everyone is doing what I used to call the binge smoke and tag dance. Every 2 meters there was a smoking bin surrounded by at least a dozen business persons. These had a great view of giant corporate buildings from which they had probably just exited. There were a couple of people who were drinking tea down the road from us, somewhere a radio was playing and two people were sweeping the footpath. Two Japanese people were taking a photo of themselves in front of a Heineken ad and just across the road from me, a man had just put his hand out to moving traffic, run across the road and with a little wink to me, disappeared into the airport.

A huge smile appeared on my face – This is where cultural differences disappear. Somethings are just universal and me?  I was home!