We Indians have always had a fascination for all things ‘phoren’; and now we have developed a similar fascination for their festivals and observances. The import of something like Valentine Day I sort of understand – given that there is no particular Indian festival celebrating romantic love. But Halloween? What explains this new fascination for the observance related to the macabre, the dead and the haunted?
Apart from the many well known festivals, we have some reasonably strange festivals as well – the lath maar tradition of UP, Puli Kali of Kerala, Jallikatt of Tamil Nadu and so on.
Adding another festival to the list of observances in India is about as useful as the ‘g’ in lasagna, as a referee at the WWE, or shampoo for bald people.
By going trick or treating we are telling our kids that it is OK to knock on the doors of virtual strangers and demand treats from them. But our parents told us never to take sweets from strangers and we told our children the same… didn’t we?
It kind of is, isn't it? We see it in all the TV sitcoms, the Americans dress up for it, our beloved NRIs throw parties for their firang friends, the well heeled in India have posh Halloween shindigs. So what was essentially an obscure Celtic harvest ritual has become a cool new Indian trend.
This is something else we tell kids, isn't it – kids who are scared of the dark, or of vampires, or of monsters and witches and so on. How bizarre that kids go around dressed as these very same creatures that we are trying to convince them don’t exist?
Don’t we have enough problems to contend with in our country, without importing an observance that celebrates horror? I mean people are still killed or orstracised because someone branded them a witch or a dayan or whatever it is that they are supposed to be!
We have many holy cows in India – literally and figuratively. So who knows what is sacred to whom? Who knows who will take offence at what!
People in India are still not that familiar with Halloween; some poor unsuspecting dada-dadi or nana-nani opening the door to a few of those could have a pretty deleterious impact on health and well being. If you must import and emulate other observances, there are other, better options around aren’t there? Why choose Halloween?
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