Why Celebrate XXX Days?

 

Why Celebrate XXX Days?

I am quite ambivalent about Mother’s Day celebrations. Indeed, I am ambivalent about many such days, like Valentine’s Day, Independence Day (not just India’s; July 4^th in the US; one day earlier to ours for South Korea and Pakistan and so on), Republic Day (India), Labor Day, Memorial Day (both in the US), Engineer’s Day (India’s), Teacher’s Day (I might have put the apostrophe at the wrong place; if yes, kindly forgive) ...

I refer to my memory of what John Thompson said after his Georgetown University won the NCAA Basketball Championship (the US college athletics annual basketball jamboree that used to be held in March every year) in the 1980s, when he was feted as the first black head coach to have won this contest.

Coach Thompson is a bear of a man and no one dare cross him! Yet, I, as puny as I am, was not afraid of him because he said something that aligned with my thinking. Coach said that he became the first black head coach to achieve what he did achieve because, and only because, before him, no else had the opportunity.

All the above mentioned days became special only because earlier no one thought that there was anything special about mothers, fathers, lovers (if applicable, women and husband), country’s independence (for India, it should invoke the shameful memory of colonialism and nothing more), adoption of a Constitution that has been breached more often than it has been followed (in the case of India), teachers (not to be respected, as students are the pay masters-at least in private universities) and all the rest.

When my father scolded me-justifiably, in his opinion-I went running to my mother. Yes, I appreciated her soothing words and her faux anger at my father that consoled me. I respect women; it just does not mean I divest myself of the right to criticize women, including my wife, on a given day, even if I have to forego dinner that night!

I have written paeans to some of my teachers, whenever I introspected and realized I owed much of my professional life to them. I appreciate many of my classmates-right through my education-ironically, for the tiffs I had with them!

I was down with meningitis, and I recall with overflowing gratitude the employees in the hospital who nursed me back to health, never mind I paid the hospital a princely sum. The list goes on.

And, if there were to be a specific day over the year to felicitate for the help each one of us received from members of society, then the Earth has to rotate about its own axis faster and go round the Sun slower (both lead to more days in a year!).

More importantly, shouldn’t I reserve days to bemoan the memory of the negative things I experienced at the hands of the same cast in my life? No one does anyone else only good or only bad all the time. In the short term what feels good could indeed turn out bad over the long term, and its reverse is equally true.

Oh, you might say that marriage and divorce are equally good (or bad), and that reduces the number of days to be marked off by one!

Only yesterday, I carried out the annual ceremony for my father, merely mechanical actions and mouthing of some indigestible words in a harsh sounding language. But, later in the evening, I took the time to go over so many of my experiences, some pleasant, some unpleasant, but all memorable (that is why I could recall them!).

And, this is the point: I do such reminiscences on the spur of the moment, not just my parents as mandated by my religion, but  teachers, friends, both men and women, and most everyone who has made my life so fully lived, thus far. I do not need anyone to remind me that I should appreciate women today, mothers tomorrow, brothers the day after and on and on.

Does anyone know whether Donald J. Trump White House celebrated Women’s Day this year? If yes, that is irony at its best.

Keep reminiscences simple, private and sincere. It makes life richer, let me tell you.

Raghuram Ekambaram