Traditions of Vijayadashmi
A tale of how children can start traditions too…
I grew up as a Bengali kid in Maharashtra who went to an English school where the majority of students were of a Malayali background. I spoke one language at home, another on the playground, a third at school, and a different one with my neighbors. But this post isn't about languages.
I have written about Pujo before, and I could write about it every year. The five day Bengali festival celebrating Ma Durga. But that is just one view of the ten days of Navratri, a glorious celebration with diverse customs and rituals across cultures.
I remember one particular Vijayadashmi when I was very little, definitely in a single digit age group. We had a big group of kids in our neighborhood who played together every evening. This ranged from me, the youngest, to teenagers. A big part of the Vijayadashmi celebrations on TV was the burning of large idols of Ravan. It was quite the spectacle. It wasn't, however, something that happened in our neck of the woods. We only watched it on TV. So, that year, we decided this needed to change.
Those were the 80s, a time when supplies weren't readily bought. You repurposed old materials to build something new. So, an old discarded broom became Ravan's leg, and parts of a broken chair helped build the other leg as well as the torso. We walked the grounds and collected dried leaves and grass to stuff sacks that would add the bulk and muscles.
We cut out the ten heads from old boxes, and we built our Ravan ground up. We had plans to stuff it with fireworks before we lit it. That meant finding a spot far enough away from danger, but close enough that people could see the spectacle. It took us a couple of days to build. There were some setbacks from unexpected rain showers and gusty winds, but we built it. Honestly, my contribution was little more than collecting leaves and fetching things for the older kids, but it was a collective effort.
We had a grand plan of how we would light the Ravan. We were going to fire a burning arrow into the heart of the sculpture. We built our own bow and arrow, too. It was time to decide who would shoot the arrow. Who would be Ram? Everyone wanted to shoot the arrow, naturally. No consensus could be reached until someone suggested, "Let the kid do it." So, the responsibility of our first Ravan-dahan landed on my tiny shoulders.
We decided 7.30 pm was the ideal time. It would be dark enough and not too late. The whole neighborhood had to be there. We went door to door and spread the word. We had created quite a buzz. Not many in the neighbourhood had quite understood what we had been building. It took some imagination, even after the ten heads were put on, to recognize the mighty king of Lanka.
It was my moment. I pulled back the bowstring. Someone lit the arrow. Everyone stood around with bated breath. I aimed and let the arrow loose. It flew across the night sky, a magnificent whoosh of fire, brushed against one of the ten heads, fell to the ground and extinguished itself in the cold dirt. The plan hadn't worked, probably because none of us had experience with shooting lighted arrows at ten-headed demon kings. The adults laughed, not derisively, rather encouragingly. The oldest among the kids picked up the fallen arrow, relit it, and used it to spear Ravan in his belly. It took a while for the whole thing to catch fire and some more time for the fireworks to go off, but Ravan was vanquished that evening in a small, upcoming neighborhood of Maharashtra.
It became a tradition. We built a Ravan every year, and it started looking more like Ravan each year. We got elders who volunteered to help, supervise, guide, and even fund our efforts. We also came up with a system to decide who shot the lighting arrow. Like all good decisions, it involved sports. We'd play a game of gully cricket, individual scores, and whoever won got to shoot the arrow.
The tradition modified over time as the older kids stepped away and others took their place, as the houses crowded out the open spaces, and the concepts of safety got stricter. It's been a long time since I've been to that neighborhood for Vijayadashmi. I do not know if the tradition still exists. If it does, is it still true to the spirit of those pioneering kids who couldn't shoot a straight arrow? I do not think it matters. Because tradition, culture, and values are not things of the past. They are not what is written in ancient texts or how things used to be. They are what we pass on to the future and how they run with it.