I have never been shy of my Bihari identity or affiliations, but I have not really been too pronounced about following the festivals and rituals of the land. And the detachment, I must confess, has been cultivated.

Blame it on the 90s. 

While I’m no socio-political-cultural commentator, I would want to believe we were the last of the generation following the Nehruvian socialism and secularism, and accepting/ embracing our own traditions kind of made us feel a bit guilty about partnering with the right-wing activism that was beginning to take off in this period. Also, with Liberalisation and Globalisation becoming the new buzz words, people like me who became an integral part of the media landscape of the country found ourselves busy shaking and shaping perceptions, and perhaps had no time for what we perceived as reminiscent of the old world order, the non-modern, fuddy-duddy small town universe, that we had consciously left to become mini-metropolises unto ourselves.

Lost between our identities of the past and the future, we became a watered-down version of ourselves. Urbane, articulate, but oddly rootless, letting the noise of the new drown out the voice of the old. In my defence, our wokeism, for want of a better word, was guided by pure idealism, but in the process, we were ready to let go of what was us, what defined the core of us. We did not want to take note of what the “new and improved” label on us was actually stuck to!

We were idiots.

No surprises, therefore, that the last time I attended a Chhath Puja was a couple of decades back! Of course, I’ve always been a loud votary of the puja, how Chhath is perhaps the only Hindu festival which is caste and gender agnostic, how there are no rituals, no scriptures involved, how the devotees worship both the setting and the rising sun, how it represents a bulk of India at its agrarian best, but I kept myself away from the actual festival. 

Till this year, that is. 

I got an invite to attend the Chhath Puja in Mumbai. I wasn’t too sure initially, worried that my presence would feel performative, unsure if I would be observing or actually belonging. And then, almost without warning, an epiphany hit me hard. The so-called old world order that I came from was as much me as the newness I wanted it to adopt. From running at the slushy shores of the Ganges at Patna’s Pahalwan Ghat to now partaking in the celebrations at Mumbai’s iconic Chowpatty, it wasn’t just distant geographies connecting, but my thoughts and identities perhaps finding common ground. 

I was ready to get my feet wet again.

The atmosphere at Chowpatty was electric, the devotion real. Chhath has a way of turning every shore into a sacred space. Despite an errant wave or two playing hopscotch, and the sea of people around, there was something deeply calming about it all. The sincerity and the faith, the smell of the wet sand, the sight of the thekuas, the vratins having private conversations with the sun god, the flicker of the diyas… In no time, I had gone back to where I belonged. 

In no time, I could see where I still do belong!