Happy Festival of Reaping: A true expression of India’s “Unity in diversity”

As we Indians celebrates Bihu, Lohri, Pongal, Makar Sankranti and many more festivals today, my mind drifts towards the true expression of “Unity in Diversity” of India, a phrase usually attributed from its reference in the book “Discovery of India” by Pt. Nehru, however its oldest origin can be traced to Sufi philosopher “Ibn al-Arab” writings and scholars believe it existed even before that.

The festival celebrating the bringing the harvest home in different states of India remains steeped in its diverse culture, traditions, geography and most importantly the “Harvest being brought home”. Let’s celebrate this “Unity in Diversity” together and enjoy the many flavors of this festival and associated exquisite food preparation across the country. Maybe dance in the true multicultural tune and relish the joy from different parts of India.?

Like most traditional festivals across the world this one is also related to agriculture and celebrates the wealth creation and certainty of food for the season and more hence filled with joy, energy, sharing, music instruments and typical exuberance. That’s the uniting feature of this “Festival of cultivation” across India within the diverse customs, rituals, dance, musical instruments of all shapes and size & type and many other elements celebrating diversity. There are festivals celebrating sowing seasons but those are focused on hope, more somber and focused on praying and preparing for the sowing and hard work rather than just celebrating joy. Then there are festivals celebrating change in season and those are markers to prepare for the weather conditions and celebrate.

This festival is also a reminder to “multigenerational urbanites” like me that today’s urbanized society is very recent phenomenon at world stage and seeds for the social structure, society, specialization, and cooperation were sown when humans started settling as agriculturists some 10,000 years ago, leaving the nomadic hunter gatherers clans. The roots of the agrarian clans, the geography and region our ancestors came from define the customs and way we enjoy.

The new age multicultural festivals of “Nations, Art, Literature, Movie, Music, Technology, Get-together of various guilds, university and associations have their own rituals, culture and may allow us to let loose and celebrate the joy of togetherness.?

It’s an irony that we celebrate such a joyous festival of being together alone from our homes to fight pandemic. Our spirits are still the same and will be together as soon as its little bit safer outside. I am tempted to talk about all the festivals motioned on the map of India but resisting the same, as my understanding of some of these festivals remains a cursory and writing more about some and less about others will be disservice to the celebration of “Unity in diversity”, more than anything else I want to celebrate “Unity in diversity”.