Shobhaa De | Get Ready To Meet Our desi bhooths… It’s Halloween!

For us in apna Bharat, Halloween is not just an annual event – we celebrate Halloween all through the year! There is no dearth of bhooths in India. We don’t need a yearly appointment. Bhooths are a part of our daily lives. Every neighbourhood has a “bhooth nukkad”, where local corporators and MLAs gather for their daily trick or treat encounters with helpless citizens. A word about Halloween, for the non-initiated: The night of 31st October, the eve of All Saints’ Day, is celebrated by children dressing up in scary masks and costumes. It has its roots in ancient Celtic traditions.

It is marked by a bow to pagan beliefs and rituals, in which the boundary between the living and the dead, is blurred on the night before winter sets in. People in the West light bonfires and wear weird costumes to ward off evil spirits. Sounds eerily familiar to us, right? Almost like tantric rituals, Holi bonfires, the slaying of Ravan during Dussehra. Besides, countless tribal rituals across the country during which participants exorcise demons, devils, witches, rakshasas, lustily singing, chanting and dancing in order to propitiate the gods.

Many of us cannot pronounce “Halloween’’. But that doesn’t stop us from embracing the latest phoren import.

A clever meme I came across wondered why Kamlesh from Ghatkopar was busy hunting for Halloween costumes at the local suburban market, when he has never attended a “satyanarayan” puja in the building he lives in.

Good question. I recall the first ever Halloween society party which I attended in Mumbai around thirty years ago. It was hosted by a chic young couple who had relocated to Mumbai after decades spent in New York. At the time, the invitees were totally clueless – “Yeh Halloween kya hai? We know only Christmas and Santa Claus.’’ Big crisis! What does one wear for a Halloween party? As it turned out, only the hosts knew and their select firang friends had obviously received the memo.

The expat crowd was bouncing around the place in weird costumes and crazy hats, while desis in formal party gear stared in wonder/horror and felt acutely out of place. The host himself was dressed as a lactating cow, in a full body cow suit, complete with prominent udders. We saw a few adventurous guests sucking thirstily on the udders and wondered if there was a shortage of milk in their refrigerators. But no!! Those swollen udders were spouting alcohol -- gin, vodka, whisky, beer!!!

Sadly, today’s fake and derivative Halloween parties in Bollywood lack imagination and/or daring! Halloween costumes in showbiz are basically recycled Rakhi Sawant outfits. But what the hell -- any excuse to flash some leg, a bit of cleavage and behave like you are on the sets of Thamma, sucking blood, not vodka, and gyrating to “Poison Baby”.

The biggest Halloween party of the year is scheduled across Bihar as the unruly state goes to the polls. Ghouls and ghosts are everywhere. Vampires and chudails too. The Election Commission has announced a two-phase schedule for the Bihar Assembly elections 2025, with 121 constituencies voting on November 6 and 122 more on November 11.

Counting begins on November 14. “Strict directives” have been issued to the administration by chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar for “zero tolerance to any violence”, adding that “there will be no scope for any threat to voters or candidates”. Sounds terrific on paper. But… listen up… glittering, modern, unrecognisable Mumbai Shining is being built by overworked, underpaid, desperately poor Bihari labourers. They live inside unspeakably shabby tin sheds on construction sites near ghastly skyscrapers of the city’s millionaires and billionaires. During this week’s unseasonal downpour, there they were, shivering away, huddling inside bus shelters, helpless and hungry. The recently opened underground transport system (Metro Line 3), which snakes its way across the metropolis, was painstakingly built by Bihari labour, along with a huge contingent of masons from Odisha. For years, these men burrowed tunnels under the sea, so that Mumbai’s denizens would finally be in a position to commute like people in the world’s busiest cities. The Bihar elections have zero meaning for the toiling millions from Bihar, who migrate to other states, having given up on their own. No progress. No jobs. No hope. Rampant corruption and complete lawlessness have made the migrant Biharis one of India’s most marginalised, most invisible citizens. How different will their fates be after November 14?

It's being described as a make-or-break moment for Nitish Kumar, the incumbent chief minister -- his tenth attempt for the CM’s post! “Paltu Ram” is the derisive name Nitish Kumar goes by due to his regular political flip-flops. But with BJP as his ally, the 74-year-old Nitish may be short of other aids -- but big money isn’t one of them!

That leaves the RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav’s son and a former deputy chief minister. Twenty years of Nitish has led to ennui and voter fatigue. At 35, Tejaswi, a former professional cricketer, has age and energy on his side. A school dropout, who had the courage to defy society and marry his long-time girlfriend Rachel Godinho (now Rajshri), he is likely to appeal to younger voters, despite the money-laundering charges against him.

Whichever way you do the maths… it only adds up to caste. Caste is the scourge India has failed to neutralise.

Till the Bihar verdict is declared on November 14, we can look forward to maha debates and buckets of dirt being flung at opponents. Union home minister Amit Shah raised the “thakela Nepo” question recently, accusing Lalu Yadav and Sonia Gandhi of wanting their respective sons to succeed -- Tejashwi as Bihar CM and Rahul as PM. We won’t bring up the name of the very powerful, highly influential ICC (International Cricket Council) chairman … and how he got the post. “Thug Bandhan” is Amit Shah’s vivid put down for the INDIA bloc. Ironically, while he was campaigning in Bihar, defence minister Rajnath Singh invoked the name of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, whose birth anniversary falls on November 14. Convenient! So… Sonia’s grandfather-in-law is acceptable/respectable, but his great-grandson is not? If the NDA wins a two-thirds majority in Bihar, “it will be a true tribute to Pandit Nehru”, Rajnath declared, without blushing. This victory will also undo the damage inflicted by the RJD’s “jungle raj”, said our defence minister, without a trace of embarrassment.

Halloween is a good time to shed old costumes and masks!