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Hankering after holidays, obsessed over off days
Spice of Life: When Saturday joins hands with Sunday, making it a cosy weekend, it sends humanity around the world into an ecstatic euphoria
As it’s believed, God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, giving us the concept of a free day or Sunday. A well-earned rest day for God after the gargantuan task of Creation! But we, the spoiled children of the same God, believe that we are working harder than even God and merit more rest days than just one.
We all hanker after holidays, always looking forward to a little relief from our school or college or workplace as if we are being crushed under the heavy load of work. When Saturday joins hands with Sunday, making it a cosy weekend, it sends humanity around the world into an ecstatic euphoria. But people in some departments, such as we college teachers, go green with envy and red with rage, as we are destined to work on Saturday, too.
We usher in the New Year with a renewed anticipation of grabbing the latest list of gazetted and non-gazetted holidays. A restricted holiday can bring an unrestricted glow of exuberance to one’s face, anytime. Coming back to work after a long summer vacation, our immediate curiosity is to know when the next holiday falls.
The two days when we are on pins and needles are August 16 and January 27, after Independence Day and Republic Day, respectively, calling one another early in the morning to know whether educational institutions are closed or not.
Obsessed with off days, we don’t shy away from making some adjustments here and there. Taking out a procession on the eve of a religious festival is an old tradition, and in most places, the second half of the day is declared a holiday for the convenience of those participating. But if the religious festival falls on Monday, for example, the procession will be held, not on the preceding Sunday, not even on Saturday, as these are already holidays, but on Friday, so that people can avail the benefit of the half-day off.
We Indians have always basked in the warmth of the belief that we carry a little bit of India with us wherever we go. While in the United States a few years ago, we were at the office of the Indian Consulate on July 3, for a document that we needed urgently. It was around noon, but we found the place deserted, and the lone Indian security guard at the reception told us that most of the staff had gone home because the next day, July 4, was a holiday on account of US Independence Day. As we looked at him quizzically, he said with a smile, “Doesn’t it happen in India?” Interestingly, all US offices were working at full strength till late in the evening.
Old habits die hard, don’t they?
