This Village keeps Govardhan Puja Spirit Alive

This story was part of the Diwali package which I had written for the Hindustan Times, Bhopal in 2001. During my ride to visit the village side I had go a whiff of what kind of fun they will have one day after the Diwali festival. So I followed it up and landed at the village where every year this play is enacted to keeps the tradition going.

The Bovine element in the cow-belt festival psyche may be withering away in the urbanized settings of the State Capital but the traditions of Gavardhan Puja, performed to worship Lord Krishna the next day of Deepawali, come into their own in villages on the city’s outskirts.
It’s another matter that the same day, a religious Chief Minister Digvijay Singh was performing the traditional foot march around the Govardhan hill in Mathura that , as mythology has it, was lifted by Lord Krishna to save his devotees from a downpour of catastrophic portions.
Gora Gaon, a tiny village near Bhadbhada reservoir – the type that dot the City’s boundaries without ever being noticed was the scene of a traditional challenge thrown at a mendicant drifter “Baba” by a snake-charmer to prove his prowess of the occult.
The wide-eyed villagers gathered in large numbers to watch the exchange in awe in the hamlet dominated by Meena tribe that hails from Rajasthan but who has sizable population in pockets of Western Madhya Pradesh.
Starting his rituals, the Baba soon went into a trance, shaking, shivering and mumbling incoherently. He claimed to possess recondite powers to even transform the fortunes of men.
The snake- charmer followed up by doubting his claims, derisively mocking at the Baba for being a phony. As the snake-charmer, Raghu Sapera, began to blow his pipe, Baba’s gyration and incantations grew more fierce. Women crouched and kids shrank away behind elders in fear.
Both swore at each other in a dialect for more than one hour while running into knocks and corners of the village and in between creating an mock fight. After a half a dozen such mock fights the Baba finally settles the score by ensuring the death of the snake –charmer, thus ending an generation old tradition of the Evil (snake-charmer) being killed by the Good (Baba).
Soon the elders started to stand up and gave away loads of money to the traditional artists who have played this very same role for more than a decade now.
The tradition village skit over with the elders happy that the evil in the village has been killed, while the middle aged were seen assuring the their young ones had learnt a lesson or two, so that they could keep the alive the tradition and festivity of the Govardhan Puja going in future too.

E-cards spelling ruin for traditional greeting cards

This story you get to read was a chance when during one of my evening walks at the new market area in Bhopal, I noticed that they were no takers for the traditional cards in 2002 and this was for the use of E-cards by the all and sundry to greet their near and dear ones.

The charm of the traditional greeting cards seems to have a serious challenge from cyber-space. Some of the vendors and outlets dealing in theme cards for the season over the counter are being forced to rethink their business model as some have reported sales dip to the tune of a staggering 60 per cent.
New Year, some say, might not bring any cheer for them. Those who offer a complete basket of gifts are better off., but only slightly. Card vendors and stall owners in New Market have cut by half in some cases to push sales and clear the year’s inventory.
Since, season’s greetings occur only once a year, all our New Year cards would turn useless because themes for the next year might change, says Rajeev, stall owner. He adds he hopes to recover at least a part of his investment this way.
The e-cards have hit business so badly that there’s no other way out except sell at heavy discount, says KS Chauhan, a part-time street side vendor in Old Bhopal area who makes some money on the side through this business during festivals and New Year. “E-cards are convenient. Never mind if they are impersonal,” he rues.
So what if there are e-cards says 20 year old Nina and adds that though she sends e-cards to her friends and relatives, she was doubling up the effort by sending traditional greeting cards as well. “I hope my snail-mail cards are more permanent,” she adds.
According to Ravinder, a stall owner in New Market, the sale of cards has been dropping at a rapid pace in the last three to four years by an astonishing rate of 20 to 25 percent annually. He plans to fold up this business if the trend continues.
He has hopes in the likes of Radhika, another net-savvy girl, who shuts down her computer goes hunting for traditional cards which her friends will preserve for life and remember her even when they get old.
Shushank, an internet buff says it’s about time everyone came out with the truth. “Who in the world has time to keep count of the cards and that too for so many years?” he asks rhetorically. So he reckons sending an e-card free of cost is fine.