Friendship Day, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day – What’s common with all these days? All of them are imported from the West and now celebrated in India with same fervor as they do in any other country. Not many Indians know what these days are some 20 years ago. Think of the situation now. Media makes sure that no one forgets these days. TV channels vie with one another to air special programmes on these days and also magazines and newspapers do give special attention to these events with exclusive articles, thus helping in popularizing these days .
But there’s this one special day which passes on the fourth Thursday of every November, year after year without a trace. Well, if you are a IT or BPO professional, I bet you know that day. Yes, it’s the Thanksgiving Day,I’m talking about . Of course it has it’s impact in these small Indian communities. For BPO guys it’s a day, when they can get a good night’s sleep as it will be mostly a holiday for them, and for IT guys the week-end goes smooth without any production issues or late night calls with the Client. And if one got friends or relatives in the US at that time of the year, they can smile even bigger, as it gives them a chance to get the best of the deals on the day after Thanksgiving, quite popular for shopping.
Well if you look at the origin of Thanksgiving, it’s nothing but a day to give thanks to God at the end of harvest season. So it’s not a unique festival, we in India have many such days. Pongal celebrated in TamilNadu, ‘Lohri’ festival in Punjab and ‘Makara Sankranthi’ celebrated in the North India, are such festivals where one show their gratitude to God.
So why do we need another day with a different name? Is it really needed? Well I feel it’s needed because Thanksgiving can be taken beyond the boundaries of religion and could be made as a day for CSR of a different kind, i.e . Citizen’s Social Responsibility. It can be a day dedicated to charities, a day to care for our mother Earth, a day to thank friends and relatives for their timely help.
We’ve lot of days to thank God, so dedicating a day to honor and appreciate the fellow human beings who’ve helped in our life or helping someone who is not as blessed as we are on one single day will not be harmful. The time and amount spent will only lift us. For marketers it will be a day of great action, as all they want is to see people take at least few hundreds out of their wallets and spend.
Will all this remain a mere dream? Definitely not. If the media and marketers join their hands then Thanksgiving Day will get a new life in India. Will they?
Siva, Well you wanna give chance to TV channels one more day to fight on coming up with special programmes.
To be frank i would like to ask how many of them in this world really thank god for a good harvest season or thank mother earth..
What people feel its yet another day atleast away from their routine work.
They do enjoy it. But they will not have the social responsibility.
Do you still feel we require this day…holiday?
Mahadevan – Thanks for your comments
Atheists in the world are very less when compared to the believers. So i believe most people would thank God (at least for few mins.)
Dedicating a day will always helps. Well, take this example – Tell me how many people will think about improving themselves on a particular day and think about the number of people who make a resolution on New Year’s Eve. Well, it’s true that most of them won’t stick to it, but at least they are taking a step forward, which otherwise they wouldn’t have taken on any other day.
So I still feel we require a day dedicated to thank people.