I looked for the origin of Thanksgiving day on the net.
It dates back to celebrations started in the New World ie America, right from 1621, where it was a three day celebration involving thanking the local indians (red indians) for teaching the New English their survival skills.
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln appointed a National day of thanksgiving designating the Fourth Thursday of each November as the holiday.
In Mumbai, we have only our family to thank for making us the persons that we are today. A beautiful example given by my Parish Priest: The Pope was gifted a ring. He goes to his mother, shows her the ring and tells her I have been honoured. The mother looks at the wedding ring on her finger, and says, Son, if it was not for this ring, you would not have been bestowed with a ring.
In India Thanksgiving day is more a day of celebrating having a happy family
F - Father
A - And
M - Mother,
I - I
L - Love
Y - You
Sr. Citizen's day
On this day, the church also made all Senior Citizens realise their importance to Society. Dignity Foundation along with Suraksha Bandan celebrated World Elders Day. All youngsters took red ribbons made especially for our elders and the same was tied on their hand.
My Parents are Sr. Citizens too. My father was pretty excited about tying the ribbon and could not wait for me to tie the same for him. My mom on the other hand is a bit shy and she did not want the whole of Orlem to know that she is a Sr. citizen (after all, she is a woman...)
When I was informed of thanksgiving day in Church, I was excited. I thought of turkey. No, not the country Turkey. The bird... U, Idiot.
The turkey tradition was really pushed by Benjamin Franklin, who wanted to make it the United States national symbol because it is a quick runner, wary, with sharp eyesight, and exhibited a regal stance, at least to Franklin
The best part of Thanksgiving / Family day was the seriousness with which we celebrated it. We did everything as a family, including cleaning the house and COOKING!!!
2 comments:
HI Dolly.... Just to u some facts.
off How Thanksgiving day came into Mumbai.
The eastindian community in mumbai were farmer, fishforks, etc . the farmers used to celebrate the first sunday of october as harvest day called Agaira (That the reason of the new pady (as the eastindian call it) disturbition on sunday)... with the fields now gone in orlem and other part of mumbai. and very few farming going on in mumbai..Mr. Gerrald form our Parish. Put a proposal to convert this harvest day.. as a Thanksgiving Day.
Hey Everton
Thank you for the info. Honestly I had no clue that Thanksgiving was celebrated in any form in Mumbai.
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