N44           Water Wasting Festival

Everybody accept that Thingyan Festival is the most distinctive and enjoyable seasonal event of the whole year in Myanmar. It marks the end of Myanmar  calendar year and welcoming the new year. All Buddhists celebrated Thingyan according to their ages and regional customs. Old people concentrated in making meritorious deeds such as going to pagodas and monasteries with offerings, observing Sabbath, giving alms to Sanghas and the needies, free fishes and birds and so on. Some middle aged and young people also does some of these good deeds. But many young people have their hearts on merrymaking only which sometimes  lead them to negative results.

   

  The most significant activity of Thingyan is the water splashing activity. People splash water on each other during the 3 or 4 days of Thingyan. In olden days it was done with good intention , to get cool from the summer time heat, to wash away the dirt of the ending year etc. People even used fragrant water which was put in silver bowl to splash on each other. Some used a bunch of Eugenia leaves to soak water from the bowl and tap the shoulder of another gently and courteously.

     

But nowadays the custom has changed. In big cities big pandals are erected here and there. Water pipes  are installed in a row and young people pay a certain price to get on to the pandal and use the pipe to soak passers by who are moving on foot or by motor cars and are already soaked. The force of water coming from the pipes are made to be strong and piercing , so we can say that they are intended to hurt people. Some young people uses tin cans and throw  water forcefully at other people to make them feel pain. Sometimes water throwers put ice in their water to make people  feel cold. All these actions are not for good purposes, but to do harm to others. So where can we find good intentions of the Thingyan Festival.

    

Some of the activities performed in the pandals are good. Like singing and dancing. Many people including tourists like to watch and enjoy . It gives people happiness and pleasure to watch these performances. But dresses worn by some performers are getting bad to worse and are much criticized by many lately. The dresses are getting much western, more scanty, more revealing and with the use of alcohol and drugs the people on the stage become wild and out of control . There is nothing good to gain for these behaviours. Young people who have some sensitivities should not think only for pleasure but avoid pitfalls by over enjoying themselves.

    

My actual aim in writing this blog is about water. As the name of this festival is water festival , plenty of water has to be used for it. If we are celebrating this festival in the old way the water used will not be too much. But who started to do the way they do today in the cities we don’t know. I mean the  way they splash water with pipes and even fire hoses as they are doing now. By this way much amount of water has to be used for the contentment of people fruitlessly. I think by myself what enjoyment do they have by splashing people who are already soaked again and again. I had watched people celebrating water splashing festival of Thailand Laos and Sipsongpanna of China. They don’t use pipes as we do but they splash water on each other using bowls and pails and waterguns only.

To be continued…….