E-Paper
Witerati | Of sparklers, swag, Swiggy
There was a time when Diwali season spelt the humble Diya’s Day Out. Melas to milling market places, streetsides to shop stalls overflowed with that primary form of festival lamp, the one and only Diya.
Diwali blitzkrieg is becoming bigger, bolder, brighter. Diwali’s plasticity is becoming brazen, bigger, battier. Much in the manner of the frills and finery fashioning Chinese battery-charged tea lights, that dazzle with designer faces but on borrowed luminescence.
Bling is king in Diwali’s Day Out on Twitterverse. For potter or for purse.
Take that terracotta totem of the Festival of Lights.
The trendier tea light is the new Diya.
The takeover by the tea light tells its tale.
There was a time when Diwali season spelt the humble Diya’s Day Out. Melas to milling market places, streetsides to shop stalls overflowed with that primary form of festival lamp, the one and only Diya.
Until the Mall culture came along. Until Made-in-China tags monopolised our markets and malls.
What is increasingly the fate of the poor potters’ earthen lamp, ditto has befallen that other traditional lamp, the brass diya.
Tea lights are the new Nilavilakkus.
Poor earthen lamps now face te(a)rrific competition. Pricey brass lamps stand outshined by the practical metal tea lights. No need to burn the ‘midnight oil’. No need to fuss over many a trick to keep burning the wick.
Tea lights are the new mass medium of luminescence. Tea lights pop out of every supermarket shelf, every wonderful window dressing.
Tea light holders that are pricier and fancier, butterfly shaped to peacock designs. Tea lights that loudly prove their metal, crystal glass ones to gold-coated white metal pieces.
Fewer and fewer Tweeple nowadays gift terracotta diyas, but one is bombarded by boxfuls of fragile and fancy tea lights.
Ah, but didn’t the whole joie de vivre of the Festival of Lights lie in the plodding, with kith and kin to put in place stubborn diya wicks; in the bonding, with siblings to scout spots to screen diyas from the myriad moods of the wind?
Didn’t much of the jollification of festival bonding lie in not knowing which way the winds would blow? The winds of life, the winds of that amavasya night.
The curious case of the humble Diya having to prove its metal.
Of speed and social distancing
Festivals now come riding not only swag but also Swiggy.
There was a time when one would travel miles simply to go greet kith and kin on Diwali with a mithai ka dabba. Even if one mausi-mausa lived in Punjabi Bagh and the chacha-chachi in the opposite Patparganj or Preet Vihar.
Until along came Zepto to Zomato, Dunzo to Swiggy. And the festival season’s mithai ka dabba began to bear the brunt of a new kind of social distancing.
Why bother to brave the traffic snarls and road rage defining Diwali season when Zepto or Zomato can jolly well deliver the Ferroro Rocher chocolates or Double Trouble donuts to the bhua jis and bhabhi jis?
The curious case of Diwali’s social distancing driven by Swiggy & Co.
Of Diwali and demonstration
Diwali’s demonstration effect narrative, too, is becoming bigger, battier, bitchier.
The competitiveness of festivities is now not just confined to that neighbour’s new LED TV or Nerolac paint. As epitomised in those ads cashing in on the “neighbour’s envy, owner’s pride’ template.
Digital age paints a demonstration effect that’s louder or ludicrous.
Like incurring astronomical consumer loans to bring home a bigger Ford or Merc than the neighbouring Gupta ji or Ganguly ji. Or pestering parents to splurge savings on the latest iPhone 14 simply because that boy in class got one.
The sparkle and sheen of festivals is not only bolder and brighter than the new Nerolac or Asian Paints, but also as synthetic as paints that peel off pronto or made-in-China tea lights that breathe their last even before Diwali puja is done.
The curious case of demonstration effect to outshine a Hari or Harry in a hurry.
chetnakeer@yahoo.com
