Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Commercialization of Festivals...( Valentine Special )



My inbox is flooded with messages telling me about my level of ignorance.

They all have one thing in common: they all describe the month of February as the month of love! I’m yet to make out what are the pre-requisite criteria of dignifying a month with such a stature. Earlier, I was told that the month of January should be celebrated as the month of ‘new hope’. An interesting thing to point out here that most of the messages I received were forwarded ones, pointing to some or the other organizations having a commercial interest.

Commercialization of festivals is the direct result of globalization. Two questions might be creeping in your mind- firstly, how commercialization is related with globalization? And secondly, why are festivals being marketed in such a large scale? Before going into further detail I must mention that this article concerns not only about festivals having a religious backing but also with festivals invented post industrialization like Valentine’s Day.

Globalization brought with itself a close nexus among the world different organizations. Post liberalization, suppose an Indian firm having a business in greeting cards was now directly interacting with a USA firm having a business in bouquets; both the firms supported each other logistically. Now the overseas department of that USA firm was maintained by its Indian Counterpart, same was true with the Indian firm. This in all broadens the scope of commercialization of festivals. It further heightened the belief that why not Indians replicate the same success which their counterparts did in USA.


Also, liberalization brought with itself a new breed of entrepreneurs who wanted to experiment with the shores still untouched. Companies started giving out sales and offers like Diwali Dhamaka and Christmas Bonanza. But, Valentine Day with its family (Friendship Day, etc) was still an alien to us.

Then all of a sudden companies migrated to a new theme. They started advertising their product around youths. More and more youth centric slogans started peeping out. Somewhere in the middle companies manufacturing Chocó’s, soft drinks, greeting cards, etc. saw an untimed opportunity floating in it. It leads to the emergence of festivals like Valentine, Friendship, Mother, etc. 


Our society accepted most of them like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, etc.  But, few others like Valentine’s Day and Friendship Day are still looked at as somewhat defying ethics. People supporting such festivals and their commercialization claim to have a wider and broader thinking. They call themselves pseudo-secular. On contrary, people not supporting such festivals and their commercialization talks about the degradation of cultural and moral conduct which is brought in by such festivals.

What's your take on the whole issue? Do share

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Image Source 1: Google
Image Source 2: Google

16 comments:

  1. I don't think you need a day to celebrate love or express it.... If I love then its always, it forever!!!

    For some reasons of importance days like Mother's day and teacher's days are celebrated... But this commercialisation is destroying its true meaning..
    Nice read!

    Cheers,

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  2. Tanvi: I agree with you... I don't need a particular day to express my love. The whole idea seems to be a crap, a result of commercialization.

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  3. I agree with Tanvi n u, but I also must disagree..I have a very weird relation with my dad...I simply respect him far too much to get emotional with him (must be the strict upbringing) but its a commercialized day like a Fathers Day (which btw, I never knew there was one b4) that lets me wish my dad n I knw he's happy tht I wished him n I'm happy that i did. I like 2 think that these days gives us an excuse to celebrate those lil things in life, which we r tendin 2 forget in our pursuit of makin a livelihood.

    We all know that we dont need a day 2 celebrate love but whn ws the last time we actually celebrated it, if nt fr this day? Whn did we express our lov 2 the ones we loved? We merely kept it in our hearts n nvr really expressed it, most of the times. A V-Day gives us tht excuse to express it, n tht in my opinion, is what matters..I agree that the way 2 do it is definitely being commercialized (cards, flowers etc etc) but I think we need such days 2 remind us of the really important things in life ....what say?

    R-A-J

    :)

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  4. Yes, we live the times of commercialization. The trick is not to fall for it.

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  5. Raj: Welcome to Weakest link. I agree with you, and definitely it's a great opportunity for budding entrepreneurs. I share a similar bonding with my father and I know it will make him more happy if I achieve something valuable in life rather than greeting him with a father's day card.

    And, I can bet you on this that majority of the people celebrating Valentine Day would not be knowing about Mother's or Father's day.

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  6. Alka: it's always a pleasure to see you here... and yeah, the trick is not to be allured by such advertisements.

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  7. this commercialization would continue. 'coz we the common man are letting it to.

    Feelings should not be in the bound of some particular days. :)

    Thank you for your visit. :)

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  8. Preeti: It was a pleasure seeing you here.. and absolutely I agree with you.. feelings should never be griped in the clutches of few days...
    !!

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  9. I never end up celebrating any of these days, seems very illogical to celebrate Friendship's day, or Mother's day. Mostly I spend them like all the other days of the year.

    As far as festivals are concerned, they are part of our cultural heritage, but I feel they are meant to be celebrated with your family and loved ones, just spending some quality time and taking a break from everyday life.
    But in any country some amount of commercialization is bound to happen, and is understandable, because everyone wants success in their ventures.
    And in a way offers such as Diwali Dhamaka cater to the masses who shop after their Diwali bonuses, thus taking advantage of the sales offered by companies. I guess it is mutually advantageous as long as the company doesn't sell low quality products at the lower prices...

    Anyways, quite an interesting article.

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  10. Aayushi: Welcome here... n thanks for such a wonderful feedback, will love to see you more often here.

    Yeah, we can never run from the commercialization as we are a growing economy and it only adds to our comfort. Moreover it depends on a particular person how he/she handles the pressure.

    There are lots of other such interesting articles.. you will enjoy reading them...:D

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  11. You have been awarded in my blog. pls check

    http://mywhitewindow.blogspot.com/2011/02/facing-bullets.html

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  12. Preeti: Thanks Ma'am for the recognition, do I deserve it? I guess, you may know better. Keep coming.

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  13. You know the first thing that someone says on Valentines day or on Friendship day is that, we dont need this one particular day to celebrate love.
    And if you really love someone you can express it anytime, anyday. Maybe thats true. Some do it and some dont. And for those who dont this one special day is just an excuse(for lack of a better word) to celebrate and cherish moments together.
    People may say that we are being blindly cheated into buying v-day cards and roses and gifts and friendship bands and stuff. No one is forcing you to do so. And if you look at the bigger picture, there may just be many people who are getting employment because of all these new ventures.

    What i feel is whether you believe that a special day should be there or not, whether you choose to celebrate it or not, there is no need to create such a hype for either choice! :)

    Nice read!
    *Its a generalized comment. I dint mean you specifically when i said 'you'*

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  14. Chandana: It's always a pleasure to see you here and why I would feel offended? Also, I have already mentioned it several time that commercialization can be looked down as a boon giving employment to many and acting as a source of income.

    Also, congrats for the award Preeti gave you. Keep coming back.. will be a pleasure to see bloggers like you in the follower list.

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  15. This is definitely true! Valentine's day atleast should be renamed Archie's day or something. So much peer pressure man! not funny.

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  16. Upasana: Thanks for being on my friend list.
    And, yeah truly festivals have been commercialized to such an instant that now even a common men seems like a commodity to biggies there in MNC's.

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