Atmanirbhar Bhava

India is a land where life is celebrated. Hindu culture has festivals for everything and practically everyone. It seems to me that Hindu festivals fall largely into one of three categories – societal victory (whether in war or harvest), familial bonds, and celebrating our pantheon of gods and goddesses.

 It makes sense that humans evolved to venerate and celebrate things that brought people together and created a harmonious society. Festivals that honour the bonds between siblings, parents and children, husbands and wives nurture goodwill that extends to the rest of society. Good harvests are shared by all, victories in war mean safety for the whole community, the gods protect everyone in the village. It’s all about unity. That’s how we thrive and prosper – interpersonal bonds.

Karva Chauth is one such celebration, where the wife fasts all day and prays for her husband’s long and happy life. The fast ends under the light of the moon, with her husband feeding her the first morsel of food. It celebrates love, sacrifice, and togetherness. Of course, it’s the wives who do the sacrificing and the husbands who eat the fruit, quite literally in this case! This wasn’t one I ever celebrated, rebelling against the unfairness of the deal. If both partners had fasted that would have been different – equal pay for equal work. Perhaps I missed a trick there, as a recent event in my life seems to suggest!

Women praying for the well-being of their husbands and brothers is the root of many festivals. Interestingly, there doesn’t seem to be any, not one single solitary festival where it is the men who fast and pray for the long lives of their wives or sisters. This omission is apparent in the blessings received from our elders too. Men are blessed with success, happiness, and long lives. Women too are blessed with all these, but married women receive one additional blessing – “Saubhagyavati bhava”, which means “May you always be blessed with the good fortune of having a good husband”. Excellent blessing, I thoroughly concur. There doesn’t, however, appear to be a male equivalent of this blessing. Long lives for their wives doesn’t feature on the list of priorities for men.

This speaks, no doubt, to the patriarchy of the time. Men could re-marry, indeed were encouraged to do so, should their wives pass away. Men carried the responsibility of providing for their families, supporting them financially, ensuring their well-being. This didn’t necessarily require the same wife to continue holding the fort at home, a substitute could work just as well. Women were meant to be homemakers. If their husbands died, it left them without a financial umbrella, re-marriage wasn’t at all on the cards. Long lives of their husbands was of paramount importance.

I’m all about different perspectives these days. Looking at this scenario in a different light, one might perhaps be able to make the argument that this speaks to the strength of women, not their subservient position. Women nurtured the children, brought joy and laughter into homes, carried forward culture and tradition, knit communities together, created the very lives we deem worth living. Maybe it was women then, not men, who held the power of being able to sway the gods and influence divine will.

In all of these celebrations, what stands out starkly to me is the emphasis on community. Relationships are celebrated not the individual. What happens then when a primary relationship ends? Are single people not worthy of being celebrated? Perhaps in bygone days that was true. People lived in multi-generational families, whole villages celebrating and mourning together. The emphasis had to be on your place in society and not on you as an individual.

Today’s world looks very different. People live in nuclear families, often continents away from their larger family structure. Individual strength and resourcefulness are now just as important as interpersonal relationships.

As a widow today, I have no place in traditional Hindu celebrations. It’s time to change that.

When your primary relationship is stripped away for any reason, or if one never had it to begin with, one is forced to build a relationship with oneself, find a way to face the flaws, recognize the faults, and yet like oneself. A person is forced to rise above and continue caring for your family and fulfilling your responsibilities.

Let’s create a new festival, one that celebrates personal strength. Maybe call it Shakti Pornima. A day to celebrate the quiet force of resilience. A day to honor one’s relationship with your own self. A day to celebrate the power that comes from within, recognize how self-reliance enhances society. Perhaps the new blessing for all can be “Atmanirbhar bhava”, “May you be self-reliant”.