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From my childhood days, I remember Chhath as a festival of the much-awaited yearly ritual of visiting the Ganga riverbank to pay obeisance to the Sun God and of community gathering, where we, as kids, would have endless fun and frolic.
Days have changed. Kids, too, have grown and somehow the majority of us don’t really think there is anything “cool” about the four-day puja. It is rather a difficult and strict festival because it involves long fasts by observers, various rituals and painstaking preparations.
Not surprisingly, very few of the younger generation, who have been living away from families in metropolitan cities, now look forward to the festival with much enthusiasm.
For a generation that prefers convenience over tradition, fun over discipline, indulgence over puritanism, this drift is hardly unexpected. And those, who still make it a point to be in attendance during the festivities, chances are that they are looking at the festival as an opportunity for spending quality family time. Sad as it might be, there are very few in the age group of 16 to 28 who vouch for the deep-rooted tradition attached with Chhath.
It is mostly seen as a puja performed by elderly women, comfortably settled in their married lives with grown-up children, while their families gather around and help them make elaborate arrangements.
I see a lot of acquaintances, mainly those in their late-teens, take a quick trip home during the puja because they don’t want to “hurt their parents’ feelings”, but the ones in professional lives tend to skip them on “pragmatic grounds”.
“I have been living away from home for several years and though my mother observes Chhath every year, I don’t necessarily visit home. It is mostly because I find the four-day festival a little too overstretched and tiresome. Also, I feel that going home amid so much rush is not worth it after all. For me, the biggest festival is Diwali, which is so happening, and involves a lot of revelry,” says 21-year-old Vandana Mayur, an animator working in Delhi, who hails from Jehanabad.
For 20-year-old student Samir Anand, Chhath is mostly an extended Diwali trip home. “If I go home to Samastipur for Diwali, I don’t mind staying back for a few more days and be with my family during Chhath even though I don’t attach much religious value to it. For me, the family is above everything and nothing like it if I am by their side during the rituals and help them with the preparations. But frankly, I think this festival has not evolved with time like others,” he said.
And the “young believers” are rare in the category but not completely missing. I was surprised to come across a young public relations professional in Delhi, Amit Dwivedi, who has been performing the festival for the last four years at his ancestral home in Nalanda.
“When I first told my mother I wanted to do it, she was incredulous. But I insisted and my faith in the Sun God has only grown over the past few years. I now realise the significance of these rituals and beliefs,” says the 29-year-old.
The writer, who hails from Samastipur district, is a journalist with The Telegraph based in New Delhi