Ashish Chowdhry: I believe all festivals are one. My wife makes every festival larger than life. She has puja or plan with friends and family, so she handles that department and I go with the flow. I do not have any rituals since I was a kid. I believe in every Gods of every religion. I don’t understand the reason behind rituals, I have never understood why we can wear shoes inside church but not temple. My mother, wife and sister when she was here, make me sit down for the rituals and I do it for them. I love the way people get happiness and peace by following these rituals, that excites me. I have vague memory of me playing dandiya when I was in school. After that, I have never understood that. Because I remember when I played dandiya last time, I had injured my eye very badly.
Instead, I go and watch people playing garba because I am in the profession where I get invited to many garba events. It’s great because I enjoy watching others get happy. There was a time when I refused to go to marriages and dandiya nights as I used think do they really want me to dance when they are enjoying so much? Some don’t even know who I was and then would stop the music to come and speak. I always feel that most of the crowd would rather enjoy their dandiya than taking to celebrity forcibly so I feel very odd. Recently, I have been approached for many events and I haven’t accepted any till now. But maybe my analysis was wrong and people do want it so I might start do it now. I have understood that TV has become a huge platform and people look upto you. I am starting to consider accepting these opportunities.
