Desi-mal point!

It’s desi in videsi garb with a fusion of celebrations, festivals and customs. The line between homegrown customs and the West is blurring with elements of desi-ness becoming a part of international celebrations. Take Holi, the festival of colours, which is played with fervour in Spain, with marathons having Holi colours as a part of their run-dez-vous. Even parties across the world have thrown some gulaal into the revelling. The ordinary ripe tomato too finds its festival being celebrated in the country, as the Tomatina of Spain comes to the Northeast. Bringing a homogeneity and universal identity, this might be what the strife filled world needs today. Together in celebration rather than apart in beliefs!

That oft-gulped and much detested haldi doodh of childhood has turned into a chic organic drink in the West, with turmeric latte and tea being the go-to. A new-age stick workout, similar to our Gujju behen’s Dandiya has taken fitness junkies into its clattering umbrella too.

While all these bring about a sense of belonging, there are also worrying practices like ‘hashish yoga’ that tries to marry age-old spiritual yoga, adding pot into the asana and pranayama equation. Ironically, fly-by-night ‘new’ yoga teachers are offering classes of yoga that start with a deep puff from a chillum. We explore this Indian-ness that has created a life and identity of its own, paired with Western rituals.

It’s a ‘Holi’day! A marathon and Holi What’s the connection People in Salamanca found one, when they held a 5K marathon with Holi colours. Salamanca resident and lawyer, Lina Marcela Santibáñez Mejía, who participated in the Salamanca Colour Race, describes it, “The runners got a bag containing coloured powder that we could throw on anyone we wanted. At completion of each kilometre, all runners got a ‘coloured shower’ under an arch with each arch in a particular colour.” While she felt the addition of colours was a tad frivolrous in a marathon, she says, “Companies take advantage of these new ideas to attract young people, though I did enjoy the post-race tapas session and drinks.”

In a thumping party too, splashing colour on one another is something that has taken Madrid and Barcelona under its colourful umbrella, adding some more to the boogeying.

Honourary Consul of Spain, Bengaluru, Surbhi Sharma feels that these cultural exchanges are great occasions for camaraderie, “We talk about living in a global village and this is a perfect example. I am delighted to see such cultural exchanges that go beyond boundaries, and into the minds and lives of others. Such celebrations are a perfect way of promoting better understanding and camaraderie among the people of the world. It is especially interesting to see this take place this year, as we celebrate the 60th anniversary of Indo-Spanish diplomatic relations!”

And everyone wants to be a part of it, “Holi has become a huge fad abroad, especially after the release of Coldplay’s music video that was shot in India which focused on Holi colours, so many of my relatives from the US and UK have shown interest in flying down, just to celebrate the festival here!” exclaims Yasmin Paul, a student of communication.

Likewise, India too joins this bandwagon with the various Tomatina Festivals being held here. Surbhi Sharma says, “The La Tomatina festival recently held in Shillong was a great success. The event had full support of the government of Meghalaya whose horticulture department collaborated with the Vegetable Sellers Association. This way, tourists, locals and farmers benefitted too,” she says, adding, “The Spanish town of Bunol greatly benefits by attracting over 40,000 tourists on the day of Tomatina Festival, leading to a good amount of business.”

A Midas touch to the latte It’s called the golden milk and cafes from Sydney to San Francisco are spicing up their menus with cold-pressed turmeric juice in milk or even as tea. A healthy alternative to coffee, it seems to be a desi tadka, in a drink. To think that the age-old nuska for good health — haldi doodh — has reached foreign waters speaks volumes of that ordinary nub of turmeric or curcuma. A spice that is 4,000 years old in Vedic culture. India produces most of the world’s turmeric and uses 80 percent of it (for cooking)!

Renowned Chef Abhijit Saha says about the ‘Indian saffron’, “There is a rule the world follows: Do things differently instead of coming up with new things. It takes very little for things to become a rage and it’s great that people have found a new formula to market things. That’s the way the world works. The trend of fusions is going to continue. It’s a full cycle and it makes me happy when India gets highlighted.”

Yoga teacher Samita Rathore has been seeing a craze for it in Australia where she is currently teaching yoga, “‘It is big time in Sydney. Organic cafes are serving Turmeric latte with ginger. It’s an exotic health drink — the West has realised its health benefits. It’s ironic that our very own haldi doodh has been turned into a latte craze. It’s remarkable how we all used to have it as kids — we would close our noses to gulp it down, and now we’ve forgotten it and the West has embraced it.”

Such exchanges promote understanding and sociologist B.K. Karanth attributes the fusing of two individual activities into one as an instance of an inter-cultural cauldron, “Cultural taboos are slowly fading. People are embracing various cultures and doing away with archaic forms of thoughts. I see this as a merger that ushers the advent of a liberal era. It is indeed becoming a small world, where one sees festivals as a celebration irrespective of origin, and issues as a part of the world crisis. The very fact that the festival of Holi is observed in Arabian countries, and our Northeastern counterparts seem to be taking active part in Tomatina, a festival celebrated with gusto in Spain, testifies to this. More than being a Roman, we seem to be taking Rome wherever we go!” he quips. A damp squib — new-age yoga Yet, something like yoga seems to be getting some disturbing interpretations. Hashish Yoga, in which yogic asanas are performed with a smoke-ful of hashish manna, threatens to obliterate the very essence of yoga. Does cannabis help in one’s quest for vinyasa NOT, is the universal answer.

Yogini Samita Rathore is filled with angst at this interpretation. She says, “While a turmeric latte is a wonderful marrying of cultures, Hashish Yoga is ridiculous. Yoga is yoga, the whole practice is to work with oneself, body and mind. There is only one yoga, the traditional kind. I think we need to use our brains to realise what is true and what is a gimmick. It clearly shows how people are so disconnected with reality — the fact that people are even using a term like Hashish Yoga is such a shame — something so sacred and traditional like yoga is being degraded to such a level by an unseemly bunch. In the early days, when yogis used to take cannabis, it was not taken recreationally but as a pure herb, this new form is against the first rule of yoga, which is ahimsa and non-violence, as it violates the body. It’s demoralising and dangerous too. Yoga has been trivialised and it’s a sad state of affairs.”

In Indian history, cannabis is believed to have been used as an entheogen as early as 1000 BCE. Usually taken as a concoction in milk as bhang and used during religious ceremonies. Hashish, or charas, is seen as a gift of Shiva to aid in sadhana. In modern times, this sort of navel-gazing to sell a concept is outrageous, Personality coach and mind guru Ian Faria sums it up in a nutshell, “I believe that culture is a moving standard. It needs to change and evolve — just like we do. However, while it is always a struggle to decide what part of culture needs to remain sacrosanct and what needs tweaking or discarding, the world now uses the power of collective or crowd intelligence. Empirically, this has proved to be very accurate in determining trends and shifts in mindset. I would therefore go with the evolving trend... knowing that someone would want to hang onto the old, and then let the universe decide what will be permitted. In any case, we need to respect current laws in force, and if they have outlived their purpose, we should endeavour to change them. JFK said it best: The only unchangeable certainty, is that nothing is certain, or unchangeable.”