The word Thanksgiving is everywhere! We don't really celebrate it here in India, well, because it's more of an American thing. But it did make me wonder about the "Real Significance of Thanksgiving". Sure its about pecan and pumpkin pies, turkey, cranberry sauce and holidays but what more? Simply put, it is a day when everybody thanks God for what we have- Thanksgiving!
A lot of churches in India, celebrate something called "Harvest Festival". I remember my grandmom telling me how they actually celebrated it in Kerala. My grandparents stayed in a rubber plantation and the estate also had an orchard, a vegetable garden, and a whole lot of animals- cows, goats, turkeys, chickens, ducks, dogs, cats.....Every year, they would collect the produce from the estate and this could be eggs, fruit jams, pickles, fruits (jackfruit, papaya, sapota..), tapioca and a zillion other things and hand it all over to the church. On the "Harvest Festival" day, the church organises an auction of all the things "gifted" by the people in the area. It is also an opportunity for the church to generate funds, for the poor. At the end of the auction, there is usually a lunch organised and the whole community eats together! Fascinating isn't it.
However, these days, things have changed quite a bit in the cities. People do not bring their harvest, (for obvious reasons), instead "gift" stuff like clothes, paintings, food, anything and everything, to the church. A bottle of jam (straight out of the shelf in a supermarket), sometimes fetches thousands of rupees. Lordie, lord, it takes something to eat such an expensive jam!
So maybe, it's not entirely right to say we don't have Thanksgiving out here, it's just that it is celebrated in a different way, at a different time of the year!
Other news:
Snake bursts after gobbling gator ------- Gruesome!!!
How damaged eggs are weeded out.........Interesting!
