Any management guru proclaims, “Each day is different from the other, start every day afresh!!!” Now there’s a trend to celebrate each day in a year for some reason or the other. I seriously don’t know who ratifies the celebration of each and every day. Earlier, I just knew three important days- republic day, Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanthi. First two days will have Leader’s message on Doordarshan (Hardly anyone watches it), flag hoisting, armed forces parades and closure of TASMAC (still u can bribe and get a quarter).
Then comes all these regional festivals and government, by default, declares holidays for every festival. India has festivals, equal to the total number of gods each religion has. We don’t realize the benefit of being in India, where countries like USA are majorly single religion. With the MNC into the Indian System, it’s always TGIF. Thanks to Bengalorean/South Delhi culture, Friday nights are reserved for Pubs and Discotheques and Saturday mornings for Hangover. By the time, we plan for the weekend, it’s almost over. The worst thing that can demoralize you is when your national holidays come on weekends.
Of late, every day is some special day. New Year, Valentine’s Day, children’s day (10 months after Valentine’s), Earth day, Green Day, Anti tobacco day, AIDS day. At least for these days, we can forgive people for celebrating, for there’s some purpose behind all the celebrations. Next comes the Father’s day, Mother’s day, Sister’s day, uncles’ day, and aunties’ day. Thank God, there’s no Maamiyar(mother in law) and MaatuPonnu(daughter in law) day, for sure there’s gonna be a fight on who comes first in the year.
There’s always a marketing brain to celebrate these days, the pocket of the common man gets plucked. Best wishes to the near and dear ones, hence Greeting Cards sales gets boosted. Telecom operators take away their share of money as SMS and phone calls (special rates for these special days). For Valentine’s Day, sales of roses pick up. There’s always Diwali season, Pongal season, New Year special sales.
The worst of all seasons is the Aadi(Mid June) month discount sales, where substandard products are sold along with quality goods at 50%-60% of the original base price. These shopowners definitely are here to hoodwink the buyers. If Aadi Sales were for clothes, Akshaya Thrithi is for Gold and Jewellery, even more expensive than clothes. Whether Lakshmi will grace your homes on purchasing gold or not, you are definitely helping the jewelers to fill their treasury. At the end of the day, everyone has a marketing strategy and every stakeholder knocks off Aam Aadmi’s purse.
Whatever it is, Live each day like you were born today and die tomorrow, and make it cherishable and memorable.
