D - The Festival

D is the Indian festival closest to my heart. No, it's not because of countless memories during my formative years, or any sentimental jing bang like that. Nor is it because the great Lord Ram kicked Ravan's ass since he could make out with ten apsaras at the same time dirty south style, aided by the mythological version of the cast of Animal Planet's reality shows. Nor is it because of the new jobs it creates in fire departments all over India every year. Then why is it, you wonder, that godless souls like mine revel in hypocrisy every year-end and wish fellow Indians 'Shubh Deepawali'.

My reason is simple. It's the godfather of all Indian festivals with enormous national appeal. The women love it and so do the men (the only other thing in this world enjoyed by both sexes). In fact, if D was actually a Don, I bet you women would bend over backwards to be made offers they couldn't refuse by D. New clothes, new presents, new coital promises or threats, hardly digestible delights and all the merriment aside, it is an excuse for people to meet and greet each other and show off their thunderous fake laughter and compare the starchiness of their kurtas and sarees.

A very disturbing recent trend in this regard, orchestrated mainly by the fag, I mean tag team of Rituporno Ghosh and Karan Johar has seen that very same maternal dupatta that has historically wiped our tears as we failed board exams or wet our beds, has found its way to cover the abs of many a fine young man today. Call me conservative, but coital promises had no role playing involved back in the day when the virility flouting Ravan hit the Colombo night scene.

Before you get all judgmental on D, let me point out where he scores over all his communalistic little rivals - the Pongals and the Durga Pujos and the Onams and the Bihus and the Guru Padwas and the Karwa Chauts and the Baisakhis. D brings all Indians together. Sure, there are those awkward moments when friends of other faiths wish you a happy D and you just smile silently like your wife's pregnancy has just been discovered. The Prof. after years of research at deca-annual House Pujas, came up with a response last year that stunned all 72 virgins when he handed an unsuspecting Captain the arti thali. Yes, there are the Eids (of various sizes) and the Christmases which are nothing but wannabe D's when we gulp down umpteen bowls of shirkhuma and disillusion the children about a fat old man with a reindeer fetish. These don't hold candles, or rather, phuljharis to D simply because we, the very people who celebrate D, have shown these peaceful influences, over years of loud fireworks (leftovers from the previous year's Chinese New Year's celebrations by the Left) that Might is indeed extreme Right.