Witerati | Easter, eastern emblems & ensembles

Easter season heralds newer narratives of revival and renewal

It’s Easter Sunday, a season synonymous with resurrection, renewal and revival.

Renewal means different things in different cultures and communities.

Revival, in day-to-day life, may also be a matter of perspective.

Easter season rang in newer narratives when an educationist took recourse to a rather desi idea resonating revival of specific summer practices.

The principal of Delhi’s Lakshmibai College, facing a paucity of funds, came up with an indigenous method to cool the classrooms in a block bound to bear the brunt of the deadly ‘Dilli di garmi’.

This enterprising specimen of academia took it into her head, and hands, to lead by example. Clambering up to a classroom wall, in an Uncle Podger-esque manner, she plastered its peeling and pimpled face with a grassroots remedy for heat control --- gobar!

She credited the inspiration for this exercise on the centuries’ old rustic practice of smearing cow dung on village walls to keep them cool in the blistering Indian summer. Assisting her in this act of renewal of indigenous practices were faculty members, whose manner and mien may have dithered between disdain and dung-ho.

This revisiting to desi coolants had Tweeple in a tizzy, for batter or for worse.

When the gobar idea went viral, it did raise one hell of a shitty storm on the social media. For smearing the school wall’s face, the principal did get some pats, but also some egg on her face. (Pity it wasn’t Easter egg, which made it pretty piquant).

Living in times of the trade war that has recently erupted, it may not be a bad idea to carry this cow dung coolant practice to particular foreign shores.

What if the plush walls of White House were to be plastered with cooling cow dung to keep the temperature and temperament of its tariff-ying inmate tad chilled? Ah, trust Trump to trundle out with a new form of “G tariff if that were to happen --- GST (Gobar Smearing Tax).

The curious case of a shit of an idea.

Fierce Sun & filters

This return to rustic practices was reminiscent indeed of a childhood spent in our ancestral home in summers. In that age not yet caged in trappings of central air-conditioning, the high-ceilinged kothi employed old-fashioned methods of screening the “roshandaans” through which the hot “loo” swooped in.

Roshandaans, the erstwhile emblems of summer’s withering heights.

Upon the roshandaans were pasted newspaper sheets to screen the fierce sun. Humble “chiks” were rolled down. Khus-stuffed chiks, hemming the courtyard circling all chambers, were dutifully sprayed and kept moist by a family retainer. Under these filtered faces of the quaint kothi, childhood sprawled upon “chatais” to tuck into that gargantuan gastronomic coolant - the tarbooz (watermelon).

Water wows

Talking of watermelons and water, some Oriental cultures flaunt a fluid symbol of renewal --- water.

The recent Thai water festival, heralding its New Year and harvest season, saw water as a symbol for renewal, cleansing and fresh beginnings.

Scented water is sprinkled over Buddha statues to signify renewal and washing away of the past year.

Songkran, in fact, may have Sanskrit roots, meaning “move forward”.

Sakura season

Talking of things Oriental, it’s also a season spelling sartorial odes to that iconic Japanese emblem --- Sakura.

Dior’s Pre-Fall 2025 collection saw our stylista Sonam Kapoor spelling Sakura’s sartorial revival in cherry blossom-inspired couture at Kyoto.

A season, thus, of renewal and revival that heralded moments bitter-sweet, oops litter-sweet.

The curious case of ‘Dung Ke Aage Jeet Hai’.

chetnakeer@yahoo.com