The Secular Festival
Yes, everyone loves a good festival. The only fly in the ointment is that someones festival tends to be someone elses misery. Much like VIP traffic movement. Im not referring to occasions like Ram Janmabhoomi Divas or Dr Ambedkars birthday or Masseys mashing which cause obvious black and blue fissures in the body politic. Even on common or garden festival days, poor unwary guys like me race through gridlocks caused by revelers to reach our banks and then discover it is a designated holiday, leaving us broke. In much the same way, VIP traffic ensures we reach three minutes after the bank has closed.
On the rare festival when one is not cash-strapped, the natural desire to get plastered and join the fun is tempered by the consideration that the booze shops are closed, and the bootleggers are marking up their wares outrageously. There is also the guilt that we have not posted our greetings cards and made our politically correct congratulatory phone calls.
However, the concept of the festival is undergoing a healthy and secular brand extension. There is now the non-designated festival such as Valentines Day, One-day cricket finals and the Miss World Competition, which generate much more clean fun. The booze shops stay open, so do banks and offices. If its Valentines, we can chat up the sexy lady in the next cubicle and send her some innuendo laden blank verse. When its Miss World time, we can indulge in male bonding and wolf whistles. If its a one -day final, we can make our bookie richer.
I wish the concept of the secular festival would be extended to Friday the Thirteenth. The date has those delightful connotations of doom, gloom and axe murders which gells with my personal experience of most designated festivals. Since its not really a major religious occasion, the booze shops and banks would be open. A certain amount of latitude could be allowed. Blue Line Operators could be encouraged to log a few spectacular pileups and spread the good word about it being unlucky. Helmet manufacturers could contribute explosively to the festivities. The fishmongers could spread Salmonella.
Greetings card manufacturers could design ingenious warning cards. Supermarkets and novelty stores could stock up on lucky charms. Hotels could run a thirteenth floor lottery. Airlines could offer special travel incentives. Insurance companies could do a special 24-hour policy.
Believers could take a traditional secular sectional holiday, on the basis that working on such a day would be seriously dangerous. They could form support symposiums that drank themselves immobile as they related all the nasty things that have occurred since last Friday the Thirteenth. They would have a long weekend to recover, which is the nicest thing about any Friday festival. Best of all, if the idea caught on, I could skip work today.