I am still biologically clocked to wake up early on Diwali ?
Back home I remember to waking up to those pungent burnt cracker smell, littered red bits of papers and a sense of urgency. The urgency always fought with resistance. Mummy Papa always wanted you to bathe quickly and get Diwali chores started even though it was your precious holiday. I don't think I could sleep through the buzz and excitement anyways. In a way the tasks are all divided..and by the end of it the Toran would be hung on the wall, the house was smacking clean(the Diwali cleaning fare! = All of Dussera Holidays :-O, go figure!), Rangoli made..and then till evening all you did was roam in dressy clothes, wish wish and wish! First it used to be the landline fight where with just one phone and 4 people in the house..the excitement when the phone buzzed with three long rings(remember the STD calls)..and then we just ate, ate all the snacks Mummy made. I miss them now. And then we would hop around houses with plates loaded with snacks and peep into our neighbours houses and come back with a even more loaded plate of snacks, and eat some more.:D. Making the special Moong Dal ka Halwa for like 4 to 5 hours was so worth it..if you are old enough and mom can manage to get hold of you..then you are stuck in the kitchen with an aching arm scraping off the Kadhai, but it was so worth it! No quick tricks, no hurry, no fretting...just making it like its made every single time only this time of the year at our home.
I cannot forget to mention the long stretches of hot afternoons me and brother spent on the terrace bursting the red tiny bijli bombs, man! were they a bang for your buck or what! Rs. 18 I think for 100 bombs and time pass for 2 to 3 hours between begging to let me burst and trying to burst the phus phus ones! Papa got them for us till we were kids..and you would know the usual platter of Phuljhari, Anar, Chakli..and then only my Brother, Bhaiya and Papa would burst the green nasty Atom Bombs..I cannot remember which Diwali I graduated to Lakhmi Bombs though. And then they got costlier and fancier, now the crackers were sold outside every galli, so every hour we would bug our parents to let us something or the other! I though there was something funny about the Onion Bombs, you know the ones that are shaped liked an Onions and you hit them on the floor and they burst. It also takes me back to the kindergarten days of started crackers with those pistols..with strips of dots of gunpowder? No clue. And those smokeyyyyyy snakess with the most horrible smell! And then you move on once you have a Phuljari...with more power in your hands. It used to be fun to get together with cousins and burst crackers literally through the night..I can remember most of them being chilly. By later in the 1990s the skies got prettier and more sparkling by the year with the fancy rockets and you would twist and turn your neck in every angle not to miss a single one! But the best rockets were those stick ones, which you had to station in a bottle and then set off! So many times the bottle fell off:-O, rockets burst in the bottle and we tried to be so creative with them. We used to try to set them off from a heap of mud, direct it somewhere it shouldn't go :P, just stand there till you could see the last strand of the string you lit was still burning and what not. Now the crackers were over and all the other fun began. Heaping the kachra and making a mini campfire and all those phus phus bombs burning off animating the whole fire! By two to three days after Diwali the noise calms, the smells are gone and the streets are cleaned off this extra kachra.
As soon as it was evening..(It is evening there right now :) ) we started with getting ready for the Lakshmi Pooja, the prasad..and before you knew it..Diwali was over! Sitting in the smokey house, uncomfortable in the crispy new clothes..waiting for the Envelopes from Papa was the best part of Diwali somehow. There is something about these long tedious things we used to do back then ...which leaves spaces and blanks in the days now because I din't sit and spend hours making that Moong Dal ka Halwa but all those hours just thinking about it..thinking about how desperately you wait for the house to start smelling till the rawness of the dal was gone...and you would be off duty! Lighting the diyas in already lit up warm balconies was very different from these diyas I line in my patio where they try to illuminate my balcony but no more. And all those times I fret about the noisey crackers and the 1000 ka ladis...I got my peace of mind here I guess where I don't even hear a loud 'Happy Diwali'.
My dal must have soaked alright, so I will go and make the Vadas for breakfast, will use the rice flour to make rangoli, light a few tea lights and do a small Pooja.
I don't just want to wish you a Happy Diwali. I want to tell you to cherish all the memories you have if you are away from home, go and meet people who might have yummy snacks at home :P, call home..do something you can that you did back home. I wish that this Diwali you get the strength to do what you have been postponing, fight your fears and do something good if you can. Get ladoos and sweets for all people who help you everyday I guess..well now some of them demand Bakshish...but so what, we were not nice enough to give it to them in the first place I guess. Show some love to the watchman ka family, his kids stand there all day hoping someone will hand out a Phuljari to them! I wish you those sparkling smiles and all the warmth of your family. Remember all those who lit your world...who are not with you today..call them I guess..and pray to those you cannot(I miss you Papa!).
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