India, Oct. 2 -- Festivals play significant roles in society by providing focal points for the sharing of cultures and religious beliefs, and for exchange between social groupings. They share strong relationships with moral codes, long-held customs, and culturally shared myths. But they evolve and change over time, as do their relative significance, acceptance, and legitimacy in cultural, social, and political terms. The meanings communicated through festivity are subject to reconfiguration and reinterpretation as the form and content of a festival moulds itself to the dynamics of social and cultural change and the process of modernisation.

Vishnushastri Chiplunkar, the writer, educationist, and the self-proclaimed "Shivaji of Marathi la...