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Journalism of Courage
For nine days, the city wore two faces. During the daylight hours, it was business as usual; come nightfall and it took on a strange, pulsating quality all its own. Youngsters wound up their pool sessions early, working people tried to discreetly hide that last bit of paperwork. And then it was time for a little bit of rest for the tired bones, for there was make-up to be brushed on, dresses to be laid out, headgear 8212; yes, headgear 8212; to be fixed just right, and a date to be honoured on the dot of 9.30 pm.
For nine days, a city with no formal nightlife bar a solitary 24-hour coffee shop lived after hours and dozed during the day. Of course, preparations had begun much earlier: one month ago, cloth merchants were politely telling clients to come back after Dussehra if they wanted to buy anything as mundane as salwar-kameez material. Little trolleys sprang up at street corners, laden with oxidised metal jewellery; they found immediate patronage in girls of all ages and shapes. Pieces were tried on, admiredand junked for yet newer designs. Parandis, dupattas, turbans met a similar fate, but the shop-keepers didn8217;t despair, for the queue only grew longer, the desperation ever more evident as the new moon appeared on the horizon.
The distinctions areless evident in the smaller gatherings: the participants, as gaily, if not as richly, dressed as their more prosperous counterparts, move in single lines around a central deity. The music may come from a scratchy record, rather than live performers, but that does not take away from the mood; if anything, it only serves to accentuate the hilarity, for untrained voices join in in the chorus without embarrassment or diffidence.
The sense of community is important: it is perhaps the only difference between a garba and, say, a private wedding. Religion, of course, was the raison d8217;etre of the garba, but if Bengal8217;s Durga Puja still retains the central motif, Gujarat8217;s garba now centres around the all-too-fragile bonds of community. The same faces frequent the same garbas; they probably live in the same locality, but it is in the garba ground that the sense of conviviality and fellow-feeling grows up.
It8217;s not unusual to see whole families dancing together either: a bearded father, a portly mother andschool-going children learning to keep pace with familiar tunes8230; Perhaps someone, somewhere says a silent prayer that they move together in similar tandem throughout their earthly existence.
The Festival of Nine Nights comes but once a year; for nine days it8217;s possible to ignore the stifled yawns, the calloused feet 8212; for no one, but no one, ever dons footwear in the garba ground 8212; and the aching limbs. The spirit of Navratri builds into a crescendo as the moon waxes on its journey across the sky; the climax comes around when the bright smiles are just a little droopy and a disobedient pimple has made its presence most awkwardly felt. But with the ennui comes a secure feeling that the same nine nights will come around next year; the community will unite once again to sing the same songs.
