Fast Please!

I am going to write about the buzz word which I had been hearing for last 1 week. Loads of friend’s status updates changed on whatsapp! And as soon as I would switch on the TV, this was the only masala news they had to broadcast.

I was about to enter an important meeting on 22nd October at 2.00pm when I get a message “are you fasting?” from a friend. My reaction having been lost in my work was “WHOOATTTT FOR?????” The extra OO’s and TTTT’s were ment to threaten him meaning ‘don’t dare to send some crappy reply’, but still I got one “Karwa Chauth?” My reaction would have been worse, if my meeting had not started.

I forgot about the message as I was totally engrossed in work and thus my friend was saved until I switched on the TV in evening, waiting for my other friends to join me for dinner. As I was flipping through the channels I saw the news scrolling in the bottom of the news channels‘Patna me dikha Chand! Jammu me dikha chand! Dilli me dikha chand!’ and in few others channels were message from husband to wife and wife to husband. What was I supposed to do with Mr. and Mrs. Dholakia messages to each other on TV. Well there were others too but I found this name to be funny, which got registered in my mind and thus they get a special mention in my blog! lol! Well people don’t need TV to send messages to their husband or wife in this era of technology!

Should I call this an advantage or disadvantage of having a family member from media background, I don’t know. My sister used to walk with the next day’s newspaper at night and once she said “we didn’t get an update from the astrologer for tomorrow’s horoscope so we used last to last month’s newspaper, picked out the horoscope of some other sun sign, pasted it and work got over”. Not to mention the name, but I am talking about one of the largest daily newspapers of India. On the similar lines I was wondering if Mr. and Mrs. Dholakia were some imaginary characters of any news journalist and so could have been the messages.

I picked up my phone and replied back to my friend, “dikha chand janab? Mil fir, din me tare bhi dikhaungi tujhe!” and we laughed at that. And yes I did try to irritate some people asking the same question “did you fast” but ensured the timings weren’t wrong! :p

Before I go to sleep, I really wanted to understand the significance of this festival. I browsed through few sites and everything had a mention of how it is celebrated but none gave a reason of why karwa chauth is celebrated. Or rather none gave the actual significance of the festival. During my search I came across one article of Shobha de in times website, which said “it is absurd to do such a thing”. Well I have found loads of other rituals which I feel were absurd and often would get into arguments/trouble with people who said “things are important without any practical explanation behind the rituals!”

So here are some of the practical reasons I thought why Karwa chauth is being celebrated (Warning: Some reasons may be too sarcastic to handle! Do not read further if you can’t take a joke as a joke).
•Women get to remember their husband all through the day as compared to any other normal day. Well if they talk about them on a happy note or angry note that depends…..!

•In today’s era most of us (married working women) don’t cook all three meals at home. Both husband and wife are working, so they manage to eat at office. Well weren’t guys doing it before they got married as bachelors? So they continue to do so after wedding also, which is OK! But yes this day of karwa chauth would help such ladies realized that if they cook, atleast once in the day, their husbands might remember them and be glad to have them as their wife! So they may get to know the importance of cooking lunch! But I believe most the married working women would react to this by saying “10 ghanta they didn’t remember so just for a minute of their remembrance, I don’t think it would be worth cooking wasting my morning sleep!

•This is not a sarcastic one. For those who aren’t working, this may be a good opportunity to socialize with women who are sailing in the same boat. And it may be a good opportunity to gossip about their mother in law or daughter in laws! ohh I think that again got sarcastic!

•I was taught during my MBA about the concept of success transfer which I have already mentioned in few of my blogs. Women tend to put on weight after marriage and it’s a process of success transfer to reduce weight. If women can go without food for a day, the success can be transferred to other days as well. Logically this looks like the most practical reason for celebrating this festival.

•And last but not the least, time to test your husband and their level of dedication. Thanks to Shahrukh khan of DDLJ, women do expect their husbands to fast too! Ask them to and test their loyalty. YES guys would have their own reasons and complaints that they are tested day in and day out post their wedding and they don’t need a day to prove themselves! BEWARE if that is the case, the same is applicable for women also.

For once in my life, I am proud to be an IYER. All that we do in all festivals is to EAT! EAT! EAT! Or is it just my family problem of eating, I don’t know!