Portraiture of Indian Festivals and Hindu Muslim Unity in the Poetry of British Women Romantic poets.

Abstract

     India is a country of festivals which show the vivid colours of unity in diversity. People enjoy these occasions with much hilarity and merrymaking and shower this bounty of happiness in the form of amalgamation of the communities residing in the different parts and distant regions. East India Company officials also used to participate in such festivities. Mountstewart Elphinstone, a scholar administrator, remembered Holi, in his memoires, as a license for various activities sometimes which were seldom permitted in the society. Bishop Heber memorizes Holi as the occasion for common drunkenness. Colonel Todd pictures a graphic description of Deepawali and describes it as the ‘grand Oriental festival’ of Central India. Governor-General and other official staff were given due honour in the invitation cards of Durga Pooja and Navratri in Bengal. English Sahibs equally witnessed their participation in the festival of Moharram.- a ten day mourning for Hussain.

Key words- amalgamation, Durga Pooja, Holi, Common drunkenness, grand Oriental festival.