Dear Editor, Few days are left for Raksha Bandhan and there is no festive enthusiasm among the youth. Festivals are certainly on the verge of losing their importance, as people are left with hardly any passion to celebrate them. In the past number of joint families was more and the charm of celebrating the festivals in joint families is entirely different as compared to the nuclear families, as the members were more, more were the chances of reducing the expenditure burden. Another factor that can be termed as one of the reasons is price rise; it has dampened the celebration mood among the people. I think it is because in the olden days, festivals used to be the biggest entertainment. Today, with gadgets, video games, malls, multiplex, gaming zones and so on, we need not wait for festivals to get ourselves entertained. Also the purchasing power has increased along with the shopping options. Unlike few years back, where we shopped only during festivals, today, buying new clothes is no big deal. This has also lowered the charm of the festivals. Earlier, get-together was the prime concept of festivals. With nuclear family becoming the norm of our life, most of the present generation feels that festivals are intruding their privacy. The so-called get together do not happen and hence the concept of seeking blessing from the elders is not at all seen. Such an attitude is becoming a part of our life which is not good. It hurts to see that festivals, originally meant for people to enjoy and celebrate together are fast losing their charm in the world where everything is getting commercialised. There need to be boundaries defined to the extent to which anything can be commercialised else the number of believers in the truthfulness and real original intentions of such events will diminish fast. D P Singh (Raju), Jammu.
