Halloween in India

(Written on October 31st, 2011)

All Hallow's Eve...

What do Indians do about it?

 1) Since it sounds vaguely familiar, they  relate it to Holi, the festival of colors. When you put in a dash of colors, paints and the phrase "harvest festival", what else comes to your mind?

2) Since Diwali just got over, they see it as an excuse to chuck the leftover and badly-in-need-of-better-cooking sweets to their neighbor's kids.

3) Another occasion to go to the shopping mall, get a dress and mangle it - and call it your very special designer Halloween costume. We are a very creative race, after all.

4) If the West call it the 'Mischief Night', it doesn't matter to us... It's only another day of role-play in which we do our usual stuff (somehow, the Western part of the world thinks it's called mischief).

5) We don't outwardly celebrate it 'coz we respect our dead souls and their peace. You can't seriously be stupid enough to call back a spirit that's done with you and the rest of the world. 

6) The West have a warped version of Diwali. We distorted the concept of Halloween to get back at them. HA!

7) "Dress up as ghosts? Seriously? Have you seen us with make-up???" (What? No? Good. We don't wear them. Except when we get out of the house.)

8) An blessed evening in which the kids get out of the house in a costume even kidnappers refuse to touch, and there's peace and quiet in the house; finally! (Maybe, that's for the father... coz the mother still has to deal with the kids down from the street. What an MCP world!)

9) As Indians, we love our rain and getting wet and happy in it. We just can't say the same thing about our favourite sweets.'Trick or Treat'-ing in  Indian October is a baaad thing for all that sucrose and ghee.

10) We are a fore-warned and fore-armed race. There's already disasters coming out in the form of Diwali crackers. Why risk another 'trick'? We want our kids to grow up without getting frightened of "BOO!" and silly shadows.

11) Orange pumpkins refuse to grow where majority of human beings do. Instead, we use our creativity and hold vegetable carving competitions for new substitutes. Cabbage usually works out good.

12) Halloween is supposedly against the religious beliefs of Indians. That's right. We worship our dead for fifteen full days a year (remember Maalayapaksha, otherwise called Shraardh paksha ?), having that impromptu awareness of how great our ancestors were (we have their DNA, you know); unlike ungrateful some others, who do it once a year, and only after being forced to, after beling allowed into a hideous costume of their choice.

13) Indians don't get the "bad luck" part of the Western idea of Halloween. To us, odd numbers are gooooood, and auspicious. Hence, the religious costumes. 

14) Halloween was technically started to tell the world about how gods and saints defeat monsters. Now all the saints are gone, and the monsters increase every year. Which self-righteous Indian would attribute to that? We are God-fearing people down here!

15)  Halloween encourages death of black cats. Indians are logical and know about DNA - a lot, actually; so, just coz the poor feline happened to have black fur, we don't automatically hate it. (Indians kinda like cats. We have the largest number of tigers and black panthers in the world to prove that fact.)

16) Shamans? Sorcerors?? "Have you seen our religious leaders? Then, you would understand how much we need such sources of good evil in the world."

17) We are not pagans. I know it sounds flippant, but Halloween did originate as a Gaelic pagan festival, and that’s why All Saint’s Day is on Nov. 1. 

( “What are you doing for Halloween?”

“Nothing…what are you doing for Hanukkah?”

“Nothing, I’m not Jewish.”

“And I’m not Pagan!”  )

18) Western people say "Indians don't celebrate Halloween coz they have no Ghandi (apparently that's how we're supposed to pronounce candy)". They just don't understand that its our way of honoring their dead - we speak their language - and they disrespect our dead! And they still can't get over the fact that we don't kiss their *****. I mean, seriously?

19) Indians don't encourage deprecating cavities. Our teeth is the only part of us that's strong enough to tear through our proteinous, fibrous, vegetarian diet, and you want us to weaken it? Sorry, no can do. I mean, no can-dy.

20) Another reason to pull an all-nighter party in a night club that looks like it got supernaturally attacked by the Aliens. 

21) Halloween is so important to white people because they have to wear a costume.  It is a chance to literally show everyone how clever you are without having to say a word. Don't we Indians do it everyday?

22) The West can't get more offensive with their Halloween costumes when they try to imitate recently dead celebrities.Indains, in retrospect, like to dress up like living heroes (cough, cough, Rajinikanth, Amitabh Bachchan) or glorious gods who didn't die of natural causes at least a thousand years ago. 

23) Halloween teaches bad values; "Give me candy, or I’ll do something you don’t like" (WTH??) - it's pure blackmail. Indians are pretty sharp in noting that point.

24) Just imagine... asking your friend for a Halloween treat. "Dominoes sure sells good pizza around this time (price hiked up to an exhorbitant rate), and he's nowhere to be found." Yeah... Indian definition of 'treat' is much better than the Western one. Unfortunately for friends.

25) It is an offense in India to dress up like somebody. Because, someone invariably hates, loves or worships the true owner of your original costume. And we have the Right to Expressing our views. 

26) Indians make practical conclusions. Diwali and Halloween are knit into the same time period; both involve lights, sweets, costumes and demons. Diwali dresses look flattering, and Halloween costumes, well, don't. So... Diwali wins the race, doesn't it?

27) It irritates Indian traffic when people in garish clothes prance around waving baskets and pumpkins. In the sweltering heat and piouring rain of our indigenous streets, we just don't have the space to go and beg for 'trick or treat' alongside money.

28) To us, Halloween is just another non-understable American tradition that had lost its initial features, like Thanksgiving minus the Native Americans, Mardi Gras without the Spanish people, etc. Soon there will even come by a Diwali without the Indians.

29) The concept of ugly witches... it's too MCP. Why aren't there ugly warlocks? Indians, too, have witches (cough, cough, Mohini pisaasu), but they are all said to be beautiful beyond comprehension. Literally. Hence, we find t a bit disconcerting to go around spreading lies. 

30) We are a loud and obnoxious race of people who can't keep their mouths shut for a long time. Which means, Indians do not appreciate Halloween because it makes us involuntarily comment on the hideousness of our loved ones' costumes, which warrants immediate estrangement. We do not like to be lonely.

31) Seriously? You need more reasons? Come on! You know this one as well as I do! Halloween, according to the Indian race, is the only day out of 365, except for April 1st, when people don't get arrested for supporting terrorists in damaging their cities. 

Phew! Indians do think a looooot! :D

NOTE:

Just make sure that your family ghost is not reading this note from over your shoulder, coz he/she might get real angry and chomp off your ear. With your already abysmal listening abilities, you cannot afford to lose a ear, understand? Even if it's Halloween, I absolutely forbid that! X| ! (Remember George Weasley, and that wasn't even October 31st...). Please refrain from ghost movies, too. Too much westernization, of course. :/ :P :D