Published on August 11th, 2012 | by Charu Suri
15Finding my Cultural DNA through the Festivals of India
As a child living in India, I rarely paid attention to festivals.
The South, with its Dravidian traditions, is quite pro-festival. It is prone to celebrating just about any event with confections and new clothes, as though there were nothing more to life than one big party. But that’s the way I like it. After all, wouldn’t it be crazy to live in a culture where the opposite is the norm?
What you’ll see during a typical festival celebration is: food, food, and more food. In fact, I’m completely convinced that Indians celebrate festivals with the excuse to make and eat silver-foil wrapped edibles more than anything else. I do love eating, so I cannot complain. And familial visits take center stage: the pressure to pay visits to relatives and wish them is high. In these technology-centric days, things are changing in that the more traditional in-person visit is gradually being replaced with an e-greeting or a text message.
When I moved to the U.S. at the age of 16, I went into a bit of a culture shock. Okay, “a bit” is putting things mildly, and no matter how well prepared you are, the sudden separation between family and self hurts. And it did. It took me a long time to get back into finding myself and my cultural DNA because living in the US made me focus less on my Indian heritage and more on learning the pop nuances of being “Western.”
Now that I have darling little Erika, I find myself wondering how I’ll raise her, and the answer is to teach her both sides of the fence (after all, we’re grooming her to be a traveler, so she’ll understand and appreciate Indian culture as well as her American roots). And of course, I’m learning more about myself and my cultural DNA through this experiment.
Some festivals I warmed up to during my childhood are now begging repeat visits. These include:
Pongal: I grew up in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, and Pongal is one of the major festivals (if not THE major festival) of the state. During this festival, homes are decorated with sugar canes, in order to give thanks to the harvest. So, this festival has great importance in the agricultural community of South India, where farmers celebrate with great joy and spirit, particularly after a great harvest. It occurs in January.
Vinayaka Chaturthi: This festival occurs during the month of August, and is the birthday of Lord Ganesha (this is the funny-looking Elephant God you may have seen in numerous pictures). The Elephant God is one of the major Gods in the pantheon of deities in India, and the birthday is another great excuse to make and consume sweets meant for the idols.
Navaratri: Celebrated during the month of September/October, this is a nine day festival for three goddesses: Lakshmi (goddess of wealth), Durga (goddess of valor) and Saraswathi (goddess of knowledge). This involves of placing of several beautifully painted Indian dolls on nine steps (heirloom pieces).
Diwali: This “festival of lights” is likely the festival you’ve really heard off. It’s enormously popular and a bit commercialized (think of it as the Indian equivalent of Christmas) where firecrackers with pinwheels, sparklers and rockets are lit and frost the sky for hours and sometimes days. Diwali was the highlight of my year while growing up. As kids, we could not wait to buy firecrackers at the store. The ironic thing is that Diwali often coincided with the wettest month of the year, and inevitably our crackers would get soggy, much to our serious dismay. This typically occurs at the end of October/ early November.
Diwali celebrations; credit, Abhinaba Basu Photography, Flickr
Kartigai Deepam: Celebrated during the monsoon (rainy) months of November and December, this festival is truly beautiful because it involves the lighting of deepams or lights in front of and inside homes. The result is often a lace-like row of clay lamps flickering at night and a truly spectacular sight. This particularly festival coincides with Diwali (my favorite festival) and is celebrated for nine days. The oldest festival in South India, the Karthigai Deepam is believed to ward off evil forces.
With the birth of my daughter, I learned about one more Indian celebration associated with the birth of a little one: the “Naming Ceremony.” Think of it as the South Indian version of the baptism, if you will. It typically occurs on the 11th day after the child’s umbilical cord falls off. Doting parents are supposed to dress up the child and place a bangle made of dark black glass beads on the wrist (typically an heirloom). Then the mother lovingly blesses the child and officially “names” him or her.
Because my parents were visiting (they’re the administrators of all things Indian in my household), I wanted to have this special ceremony for Erika:
We used gold bangels (worn by me as an infant) and a gold necklace to adorn the little one
This is the beautiful bangle that my parents gifted Erika: it traveled all the way from Chennai to New Jersey…
Erika in her Indian dress and pacifier…
With the glass-beaded bangle: she looks puzzled…
Hi, Charu. I enjoyed this post a lot…the festivals from your childhood look fascinating and I can understand why you'd want to experience them again. I hope that if I go to India someday I can check out one (or more) of them!
Very cool to read about the 'naming ceremony', too. Must have been so wonderful to have your parents there. Congrats on having lovely Erika! I look forward to following along as you bring Erika into the Indian traditions, etc. Exciting and wonderful times!
PS: Love the Indian dress and the bangles!
Thank you Lisa! It was really fun to write but even more fun to dress up Erika!
Indian festivals are designed with a thee fold significance acc to what I have learnt from books..
1)They invariably fall on an imp position of our Solar system and is likely to bring in a change in the climate which will help the Paddy fields to grow more foodgrains 2)Hence as a corollary Hindus cook and submit what they have taken from their fields to Gods(we have many Idols with an ultimate knowledge of One is controlling everything else in this universe!))3.And after a simple submission ..Eat and enjoy the festivities..
Gold has been likened to the Goddess of wealth,Laxmi, and hence Hindus generally Hoard Godl..The estimated Gold hidden in Indian Houses might surpass all other Gold treasures elsewhere in the world..It si true if we can see from what ,as parents we bought this small Golden jewels some 35 yrs back is being adorned by our grand daughter!
Erika looks beautiful! Very cool that you are preserving and passing on Indian traditions like the naming ceremony. it seems like there are a ton of fun festivals in Chennai… I want to go!
Thank you Leslie! You will be welcomed with open arms! I’m thinking of writing an ebook on South India.
Great post! I worry sometimes that my culture will be lost with my daughter since she is much further removed from China than I was (I was 1st generation here) so I, too, try to keep her aware by letting her know about cultural holidays and other traditions. You daughter looks so cute in her outfit, by the way!
Thanks for the sweet comment, Maria! I still don’t know so many of my country’s traditions…sad to say, but I’m starting to discover them slowly thanks to my parents. You seldom appreciate what you have growing up.
Lovely photos, Charu! Erika looks so cute in her finery. Here in Toronto's east end, we have the largest community of Sri Lankans outside of Sri Lanka, with a big boost due to 'family reunification' after the tsunami. Diwali is well known and much-enjoyed in Toronto but the other festivals you mentioned, not so well known. Appreciate the details!
We never appreciate what we have at home because we don't realize it is special. But wow I envy that you have a background with such beautiful traditions.
Thanks Ayngelina…and you’re right, we seldom appreciate our traditions at home. As I’ve grown older I realize how important it is to cherish them.
It's interesting to now be thinking about raising a child to be cross-cultural. John's family are quite involved in their Macedonian traditions and we'll have to incorporate some of that when we finally have a baby. But I'm very removed from my own family's cultural heritage (I'm Italian and mixed-Eastern European). I think it's nice for children to know where they came from. My parents, despite the fact that my father was actually born in Italy and my mother's father was an immigrant, just always raised me as an 'American.' It was only in the last few years that I've started delving into my genealogy and learned more about where my ancestors came from.
Well, I was already very interested in your descriptions of the festivals and your upbringing in India. Then you show pictures of little Erika! Such a precious beauty. Wonderful that you’ll be teaching her both the Western and Indian cultures.
I must say, South Asian countries have some of the best festivals in the world. Vibrant colors and food is a definite highlight. By the way, Erika looks lovely!
Thank you, I totally agree with you about the festivals. Erika says thank you
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