This Diwali, let outdated traditions go up in smoke 15/06/19, 8*04 AM

This Diwali, let outdated traditions

go up in smoke
Twinkle Khanna

Each time someone stands up against patriarchy, regressive traditions, or

even pollution for that matter, trolls emerge like sightless earthworms
wiggling their bodies in the mud, hoping desperately that some of it will
stick onto the recipient of their outrage.

This week, designer Masaba Mantena backed the firecracker ban and
what she got in return were slurs that she was illegitimate and against
Hinduism. I spoke about Karva Chauth and again the frantic earthworms
threw mud on my family, thinking that it would make me bow my head in
submission. I cannot stoop to the level where such beings reside as I
believe that different perspectives should be presented, clearly and
logically. And here is mine.

Karva Chauth is a ritual where a married woman prays for her husbandʼs
long life by fasting the entire day. On the surface, a simple ritual, perhaps
even a romantic one as you stand on a terrace dressed in your finery
under moonlight.

But look beneath the gota-embroidered dupattas and turn over the
chhani, and you can see a more complex issue.

It begins with marriage when we say, ‘Your name is more important than
mine, so let me change it to yoursʼ. Then we deprive ourselves of food
and water out of love, of course, but what we are actually saying is: ‘Your
life is more important than mine, so let me fast for youʼ. The subconscious
message to our children is: ‘Your father is more important than I am.ʼ And
we pass this down generation after generation.

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This Diwali, let outdated traditions go up in smoke 15/06/19, 8*04 AM

Is this really the tradition that we want to pass on to our children because
this one states that men are more important, their lives have more value?
This, in a country where the practice of female infanticide is so
widespread that the government had to step in, and make it a criminal
offence to disclose the gender of foetuses because we are murdering our
girls. According to the 2011 Census, Haryanaʼs sex ratio was so skewed
that there were only 861 females to every 1000 males. What happened to
the rest of the girls isnʼt a mystery. But still we propagate a custom where
his life is more important than hers.

Now letʼs move to the crackling topic of the SCʼs firecracker ban in Delhi.
Like me and millions of other children raised in India, Masaba must have
celebrated Diwali with new clothes, sweets and the quintessential
rockets, anars and phuljharis. But when she supports the ban on
firecrackers because of the pollution it creates, the earthworms once
again flail desperately, not by quoting statistics or making logical
arguments to refute her point but by muck-raking. ‘Donʼt mess with our
ancient traditions,ʼ they say.

I would like to tell them that if we stuck to all our traditions just because
theyʼre ancient then we should still be pushing widows into funeral pyres
to commit sati and get our children married off at the age of eight.

As much as I would like to see the delight on my daughterʼs face — the

same glee I had as a child — while bursting atom bombs and laris, it is
the present scenario and not nostalgia that must dictate my actions. If
even doctors welcome the ban as they feel fumes from firecrackers take
pollution levels beyond safe limits, then perhaps we need to change our
traditional values and create new ones. If saying that makes me a bad
Indian, then so be it.

One of the greatest privileges I have — in fact because of the very

background that they are trying to smear — stems from the fact that I
was lucky enough to have a mother who has raised me to believe that
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This Diwali, let outdated traditions go up in smoke 15/06/19, 8*04 AM

equality isnʼt one of my privileges but it is my right. One that was hard
won by some brave and fearless women, women who set the right
precedent for other women by standing against inequality

Itʼs not that I donʼt miss the excitement of a special day, the mock
complaining with my friends about starving on Karva Chauth, the allure of
standing beneath a moonlit sky with my partner but I cannot propagate a
mindset where a manʼs life is more important than a womanʼs. If that too
makes me a bad Indian, then so be it.
The flailing earthworms do not realize that you cannot shame us by
pulling down our mothers, those fiercely independent women who have
lived life on their own terms, who have not just talked the talk but walked
the walk. Yes, you can reason with us by presenting a logical argument
but this seems to be beyond the resources of these anonymous
creatures hiding their faces in the mud.

And yes one last thing, for all those claiming to be the flag-bearers of
ancient traditions, it would be lovely if you adhered to your so-called
traditional ways completely. Why do you write open letters, tweet and
troll in the language of the Brits? Why not go traditional there as well, use
only our ancient languages and spare us your venom-filled and
grammatically incorrect English? Happy Diwali!

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