Its Halloween!

Pumpkin curving; Source-Google images

The last three months of the year are highly looked forward to, and largely anticipated by many sections of people in the world. It could be attributed to having several holidays, festivals, (exams may be?) and above all the coming of the end of the year, or rather coming of the new year?!

Yesterday was the eve of Halloween, "an annual holiday observed on October 31, primarily in Canada, Ireland, the United States and the United Kingdom. It has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian holiday All Saints' Day, but is today largely a secular celebration" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween)

This is my fourth time observing this annual event. So yesterday too like last year, I with my two roommates went to Melbourne downtown to join the thousands of people in their best choice of costumes to mark the event. The roads leading to the downtown as normal were closed for traffic, and they were fenced from every entry point, so that people have to pay to get admittance. But problem is, even if you are willing to pay $10, the queue was just so long which didn't seem to be moving at all, which I later learnt that the space was very full and gate keepers are denying of entry until 12:00 am. We checked each and every entry point in a hope of finding the shorter queue, but in vain. Eventually though, around 12:15 am, we were allowed to actually enter for 'free'. We got in and met several friends out there. Some of them were in costumes imitating Lady Gaga, Doctors, Presidents, so on and on. At times, I laughed at very funny costumes, and sometimes got scared by the haunting masks. But my best was the imitation of Osama Bin Laden. I laughed a lot when I first spotted that, and felt little terrified too recollecting all those he had done to this world!

Above all, people were looking so excited about the event as they flock in groups at night clubs and parties. One significant thing that I noticed about this event was the pumpkin curving. Everybody buys pumpkin of various sizes for curving, and decorate their houses. Immediately, the thought came into mind that those farmers who grow pumpkins are doing good business, and making decent money here. In our country, we don't have any festivals like here which requires pumpkin in such quantity. In fact, people usually 'waste' pumpkin, and feed animals. I think if our government could collaborate and export pumpkins to America or nations observing such events, it would help bring our local economy up, and directly help lift the livelihood of our farmers. Lol, sounds cheesy, but its doable, i think.

Happy Halloween and a nice Holiday!!