Comments on space of my own: Cut-throat competition – literally!

@swap-nil (afterall, what's in a name :P)now i get...

2008-01-17T20:26:00.000-09:00

@swap-nil (afterall, what's in a name :P)

now i get what you meant by community celebration. Good suggestion.

and the name of the river is Sabarmati - how could you forget that?!

Bhumika: Sigh..go ahead, twist my name, i'm used t...

2008-01-17T04:08:00.000-09:00

Bhumika: Sigh..go ahead, twist my name, i'm used to it...sob...

Community celebrations can help by being more regulated:
If fireworks experts put up a display of fireworks on diwali with people getting together in a safe field to watch

Or if uttarayan kite flying is restricted to the area on the banks of the river (i forget the name)

Or if holi is played in an area with environmentaly colours and gulal only

Maybe this could help

But of course awareness is crucial and mandatory before people agree to such practices...

@omThanks for the insight. I didn’t know abt ‘sadd...

2008-01-16T20:24:00.000-09:00

@om

Thanks for the insight. I didn’t know abt ‘saddi’. I wish sooner or later the manjas are banned and saddi is brought back.

@Swap-nil (I just felt like writing it that way!)

1.Almost everyone enjoys these festivals without giving a thought to such problems. I’m not asking you to take an extreme step and stop celebrating but instead trying to sensitize people so that sooner or later they are compelled to think of better ways of celebrating the same.

2.Sad but true

3.Completely agree with you on this one. Solution – community celebration? How will that help? General awareness through a strong media campaign could do the trick in the long run.

@kay

Last Holi I had a terrible experience when my skin reacted to a strong colour. Few years back I was also painted in Asian paints! Holi is a b’ful festival, provided it is celebrated in the right spirit. Same holds true for other festivals. Unfortunately, what they have become today is utter nuisance.

You said it all actually..Celebrations should be c...

2008-01-16T19:49:00.000-09:00

You said it all actually..

Celebrations should be celebrations of life and not a competition on whose kite cuts how many throats, whose colour stays the longest and burns maximum number of faces and whose crackers burst how many ear drums and cause maximum pollution!!

But the festivals we have are beautiful, in all senses if our need for image in every sector didn't mar the spirit...

1. I've been a part of uttarayan only once in Ahme...

2008-01-16T03:11:00.000-09:00

1. I've been a part of uttarayan only once in Ahmedabad and will have to admit that i thoroughly enjoyed the festival without thinking of these things

2. somehow, once you think about it, all festivals are morphing into something that the initiators would never have imagined.

3. the intrinsic up-man ship seems to be too blame.
I will burst a hazaar ki ladi if you burst a 500 ki ladi.
Put gulal on me, will you? Take this silver paint - won't go till next holi
And of course- cut my kite will you? here take my pure glass manja, cut this if you can

I guess the spirit pervading these festivals is changing from 'let's celebrate together' to 'let's celebrate versus them'...

And I don't know the solution - community celebrations only?

There are better ways... there have always been be...

2008-01-16T01:59:00.000-09:00

There are better ways... there have always been better ways to do these... like there was a time when we used to use the home made manjas before the much dangerous threads came into picture...

the saddi that is there.. the white thread...

traditionally... when you are kite flying, its most of the cotton thread ( called Saddi where I am from) makes up most of it, and the manja is just about 10 ft or 20 so that you can ladao the pechche... but now people don't use any saddi anymore.. its manja all the way and that makes it bloddy bad !!!