The an­nu­al ob­ser­va­tion of Pitri Pak­sha (San­skrit) or Pitar Pak (Bho­jpuri) is a fort­night of Hin­du rev­er­ence for their an­ces­tors (pitris). This year it took place from Tues­day 1st Sep­tem­ber to Thurs­day 17th Sep­tem­ber.

Shri Rav­i­ji, spir­i­tu­al leader of the Hin­du Prachar Kendra, sent me a com­pre­hen­sive dis­course about the ob­ser­va­tions. I have con­densed them here.

He wrote that dur­ing Pitri Pak­sha or Pitar Pak Hin­dus set aside all cel­e­bra­tive ac­tiv­i­ties, busi­ness ven­tures or or­ga­nized re­li­gious events at home in the com­mu­ni­ty ex­cept for per­son­al sad­hana or dai­ly du­ties.

The fort­night is marked by ded­i­cat­ing fi­nance, gro­ceries, and do­na­tions to so­cial work in the name of one’s pitris.

The days are del­e­gat­ed for rit­u­al­ized re­mem­brance and homage to di­vine pitris, au­thors of Hin­du sa­cred her­itage, an­cient and an­ces­tral lin­eage. In Trinidad and To­ba­go some tra­di­tions al­so sin­gle out their im­me­di­ate ja­hagees who made the jour­ney across the kaalaa paani to the Caribbean

Hin­dus tra­di­tion­al­ly prac­ticed Sanyuk­ta pari­waar (ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly). Nowa­days, there are both ex­tend­ed fam­i­lies and nu­clear fam­i­lies. But dur­ing Pitri Pak­sha fam­i­lies gath­er at the an­ces­tral home or by the el­dest male. In this way, pitri pak­sha pulls back the ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly or at least part of it, for a day.

Much is made of the var­i­ous dish­es that were loved by the an­ces­tors dur­ing their life time. All are in­volved in re­mem­ber­ing the var­i­ous se­cret fam­i­ly in­gre­di­ents, tech­niques and tastes. And the re­union pro­vides an an­nu­al re­hearsal of fam­i­ly jokes and sto­ries.

When Rav­i­ji took time out of his work re­gard­ing the Na­tion­al Yagna for En­light­ened Cit­i­zens and sent the above in­for­ma­tion to me I was pleas­ant­ly sur­prised to see the sim­i­lar­i­ties be­tween the prac­tices of Pitri Pak­sha and what I had writ­ten about a rit­u­al for ob­serv­ing Eman­ci­pa­tion Day.

Very ear­ly on, the late Chief Ser­vant, Makan­dal Daa­ga had sug­gest­ed that Africans should fo­cus on the spir­i­tu­al­i­ty of Eman­ci­pa­tion Day. He be­lieved that Eman­ci­pa­tion Day should be used as a time for strength­en­ing, link­ing the an­ces­tors, the present gen­er­a­tions and the un­born. In prac­ti­cal terms, he said that in every African home fam­i­ly mem­bers should light “Light a Can­dle, Say a Prayer, Play a Drum” on Eman­ci­pa­tion Day. He left fash­ion­ing the rit­u­al up to each house­hold.

I based my rit­u­al on African Thanks­giv­ing prac­tices.

I asked that par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion should be paid to the African an­ces­tors. “We share com­mon or Na­tion an­ces­tors. They are the prog­en­i­tors of the African peo­ple…Among the Na­tion an­ces­tors are per­sons, named and un­named, male and fe­male, who fought for our Eman­ci­pa­tion…Our Fam­i­ly an­ces­tors are the pre­de­ces­sors of our blood-lines”.

My list of ac­tiv­i­ties is sim­ple. I have sug­gest­ed: Eman­ci­pa­tion Day greet­ing cards. Invit­ing fam­i­ly and friends. Cleans­ing homes. Cleans­ing our­selves by a pe­ri­od of fast­ing.

And of course, there are the fur­ther rit­u­al acts of li­ba­tion, prayer, song and dance. The serv­ing of a com­mu­nal meal is equal­ly as im­por­tant as the rit­u­al. I wrote that fam­i­lies should pro­vide food from their own cui­sine and agri­cul­tur­al pro­duce.

I fur­ther sug­gest­ed that cel­e­brants should use Eman­ci­pa­tion Day as one of the dates dur­ing which at­ten­tion should be paid to the less for­tu­nate in our so­ci­ety. What­ev­er one can do should be done. one may wish to feed, clothe and /or vis­it oth­ers around this time.

Con­tri­bu­tions may be made to Hos­pi­tals, Hos­pices, Homes for Chil­dren, the Aged and Con­va­les­cents. In my own case I have start­ed an Eman­ci­pa­tion Day to Re­pub­lic Day Ed­u­ca­tion­al As­sis­tance Dri­ve.

I al­so wrote that on Eman­ci­pa­tion Day very African fam­i­ly should re­call its own his­to­ry of ac­com­plish­ments, oral or writ­ten.

Imag­ine, if in the schools we had cur­ric­u­la with pro­grammes of ap­pre­ci­a­tion and re­spect about im­por­tant spir­i­tu­al events like Pitri Pak­sha and Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, this mul­ti-cul­tur­al, mul­ti-eth­nic state may de­vel­op a bet­ter foun­da­tion for na­tion­al uni­ty.

Aiye­goro Ome

Mt Lam­bert

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