The Reluctant Chhath Puja Admirer

I've witnessed some aspect of Chhath Puja multiple times in my life: At least on five occasions from a bird's eye perspective, when we used to live in a home by a riverside hillock in Upper Assam. Once as a traffic bystander in Kolkata when I saw tempos stuffed with standing people heading toward the river. Once, three years ago as a semi-participant with a family in Siliguri, and today, as a close observer in the village.

My first two types of experiences, fed into my anti-Bihari bias --- that of chaos, dirt (pollution), and Bhojpuri noise. But allow me to share my thoughts on the same based on my latter two experiences.

Chhath Puja, I've been explained is an expression of gratitude toward the Sun God and Goddess - Surya and Shashthi devi (Chhathi Maiya). It is also a mannat festival --- i.e., the 12 + 36 hour fast and pre and post rituals could also be about wishing for specific (but alas quite typical) divine blessings.

Believers (like all believers do) swear by the miracle powers --- the alcoholic turned pious husband, barren wife suddenly ‘fertile’ and of course the birth of a son after five daughters! Sigh! Secretly I wonder (or HOPE) that these are only the wishes and miracles, women tell out

loud to appease patriarchal pressure --- but that’s for another train of thought.

Today it’s about the chaos, noise and dirt.

The image of witnessing the Chhath Puja as a teenager from our home across the river is so vivid in my memory that I was sure I have a picture or two of that sight. Turns out, I don’t. But what I do have is a memory to test my own set of biases. We’ll come back to this in a bit.

Yesterday when we arrived by the river, it was just about seven minutes before the sun hit the horizon. Ten women in bright red saris knee deep in water, stood still in a row praying to the Sun God. They were probably in this position for a while before I arrived and did not move or react to anyone for the next seven minutes. As soon as the sun dial struck dusk, they moved toward their respective family offerings. In quick process driven succession, the other family members handed over one offering after the other to the lady of the house. Still in water, she takes the offering and bends down to almost touch the bamboo trays to the water, then straightens up, bows down with it toward the disappearing Sun and places it back on land.

This was repeated so quickly for all the sets of offering that before you know it, it's all done, packed and ready to be carried back home as prasad. Because hey, the Sun doesn't wait!

I also realized today that as much as it appears from afar, the actual rituals are very singular family oriented – each family had their very clearly demarcated stalls marked by banana plants. I suppose, it’s the visual consistency that makes it appear and feel communal.

So much for chaos!

As a young adult do you recall what your parents thought of clubbing music? Noise. Right? But to the cool, young, eager-to-please-your-peers you, it wasn’t noise. Because in that noise, you learnt to either sway to the beats or enjoy the calm of ‘so loud that you can’t even hear your own thoughts’. Well that’s how I’ve learnt to enjoy the 'calm' of loud music in Indian festivals.

So let’s leave the noise conversation there and jump to my favorite bit --- oh the river pollution!

I’m that best friend who will secretly wake up at 7am after being sloshed at your wedding the previous night, only so she can witness and case study the sheer amount of waste the party generated. Side note: very possible in home-hosted events, but impossible in luxury venues --- they clean up their act far too quickly for any guest to notice. Yup, I tried to pull my stunt at the Trident, and failed.

So, what about post Chhath Puja pollution? Traditionally all offerings are fruits and thankfully the concept of pealed oranges in plastic containers has not reached here as yet. There is also no idol immersion in this festival, so no toxic contribution either. The only industry that thrives during Chhath, is fruits and bamboo basket weaving! Can’t complain there, can we? Instead, we also have a river bed that is cleaned at first and left plastic litter free thereafter. All that remains (at least in our village context) is some bamboo, stems of banana and clay diyas.

Sure, we could take it one notch further, by adopting a leave-no-trace policy, but that’s for another train of thought. For now, I want to go back to the thirteen year old me, whose idea of the Chhath Puja (from up across the river) was of chaos, noise and dirt. In going back, I’ll tell her of the number of logistical prep done by the families leading up to the event – the sugarcane, the fruits, the bamboo baskets.

I’ll tell her about how rice in grown and harvested and the hard work behind the kheer-puri prasad for extended family and friends, whilst being in a 12 hours (no-food-or-water) fast on day one, and 36 hours the next day.

I’ll also tell her about taking a day to be in sync with the Sun, and taking a moment to display gratitude toward this generous source of energy.

End.

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PS. Lastly, before I sign out let’s also address the elephant in the room --- OMG no mask, no social distancing!

As someone whose work entails setting norms for team safety and morale; keenly observing and enquiring about local patterns of interaction, cultural events, and cases of Covid-19 is a given. And honestly, over the past months, I’ve had to work hard to find a mental balance between how to manage personal safety and team social distancing challenges.

So for simplicity sake in this case we could take three factors to look at this. One is that there has been no reported case of Covid-19 in this village. The four cases in August is the neighbouring village somehow amounted to no transmission (and that's also for another train of thought). The second factor is density, and the third is exposure with people you wouldn’t otherwise interact with.

In our context, we have a mix cultural group of Adivasis, Rajbanshis and Biharis in our immediate 3 km radius. The Bihari community (who celebrate the Chhath Puja) in my perspective account for about 20-30% of total households in the entire set of villages. There is a rivulet running across the neighbourhood and that means, every village has access to a riverside within walking distance.

In the case I witnessed yesterday, on one side of the rivulet, we had 10 (nuclear and joint) families participating in the evening ritual and a total of about 100 people. On the other side, there were 6 families. These are families with individuals who cross paths on daily basis in the village market, and in their evening catch-up sessions. So in my opinion, and I hope this is not a false comparison, if anything is going to cause of spike in Covid-19 in our small communities… Chhath Puja is not one of them. Especially when it’s competing against this:

I suppose my point is not so much about political rallies being hotspots for a pandemic spread; because I also believe that people have a right to choose, on how they wish to individually engage in Democracy – rallies or protests or celebrations. I also want to acknowledge that ever since the first lockdown, in every picture I see online… I suppose my survival instinct kicks in and the FIRST thing I look to check for, are masks! I try to catch myself when doing that, and shift back focus on the human story behind the picture.

My point is, 9 months into this crazy and not to mention the onslaught of awareness content since, we could now also respect people's decisions to celebrate a piece of life without pouncing in every second about the position of their masks and sharing festival wishes like, “Now get ready for the CoViD spike in two weeks”.

Stay home if you can. Stay safe. But let’s also fight our instincts and allow ourselves to appreciate effort and happiness outside of our four walls. After all, the Sun is more than just vitamin D. Happy Chhath Puja!