It might be easy to believe, looking at the advertisements on television, social media and various shopping apps, that the true purpose of festivals is shopping. This is, in fact, not too far from the truth. Conspicuous consumption has been part and parcel of sacred calendars, as have lean periods in that same regard: Christmas followed by Lent, Ramzan by Eid and the various harvest festivals across the Subcontinent that are a way to celebrate, connect and yes, eat and procure, after a season of hard labour. But there’s more to celebrations than just their economy. Festive revelry is both religious and social, immanent and transcendent. And the connection between these opposites – the destruction and renewal of society, in essence – is most visible in Holi. Story continues below this ad For Emile Durkheim, “the father of sociology”, communal celebrations served two interdependent purposes. First, they were a form of “collective effervescence” – an almost spontaneous, emotional and spiritual occurrence when the group participates in the same sets of experiences and in doing so, …