Friday, October 16, 2009

Of Diwali...Then and Now!!

I have seen 29 Diwali's in my life so far. But the way I remember them can be divided into three categories.

As a school going kid, Diwali was all about getting new clothes, eating lots of chocolates and mithai and burning crackers. Though I was never so bold with cracker bursting, watching them from a distance was my forte. But eating and wearing new clothes was my favorite part for Diwali always. The colorfully lit house and the candles all around are also a memory I remember from my school days.

Post my grandmothers death on Choti Diwali in 1995, Diwali took a different image for me. For years to come, I couldn't think of the festival as anything but a ritual. Something that the world was celebrating but marked my dear ammaji's loss for me. Then as I grew up, I reached redemption for the same and started looking at the festivities differently. The old colors and happiness that marks this festival was back and I was an adult celebrating it in my own girlie way.

Diwali meant rangolis, diyas, wearing a suit(a bi-yearly ritual) and the evening puja with the whole family. All the four happened only once/twice an year and have a clear impression on my mind. The evening puja where the full clan sat together in the puja room and prayed for half an hour. The wait for tauji to polish all the silver coins, the eagerness to get on with the proceedings so we can eat the pooris and then the collective teasing of the little ones. Everything seems so fresh....

Then there is the third type of Diwali. The one I have seen as part of being the Dilli ki bahu. Now what do I cherish of this, you ask? The mad rush to buying that last crockery set, the abuses hurled at each other in the traffic, the huge money lost in cards, the endless hours spent in deciding, buying and distributing gifts and the sleepless nights that follow after playing cards and devising strategies to reverse the losses...These will go on and on...

But yes, the better memories are opening the gifts the others give and finding the glasses you wanted for long, a visit from Mom to wish Happy Diwali, making Rangoli and cleaning my new house, dressing up in a Sari and seeing Mohit in the one Kurta he wears each Diwali. All this make Diwali the memory it has for me... Its ever changing but there is something that never changes for the festival. The memories it leaves each year...

Here's to a Happy Diwali for all!

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