Diwali is not the same anymore

This month has been full of festivals and work. With absolutely no time for SD and constant calls today though it is working weekend I managed to take some rest and a couple of blogs.

On 5th was AD’s b’day I managed to bake the cherry chocolate cake that Akay posted. I just altered a couple of ingredients which I would post in the blog shortly. SD and AD loved it so much. Thanks A-kay

Then there was karva chauth on 17th. The only festival when ma would dress up. She would look her best unlike most the days where she would never bother to even change her earnings she would be dressed in the best of sari, jewelry and make-up. She loved this festival. As for me I loved this festival just for mom and hated it for a long time and still I don’t know why I am doing it. My ma did not ask me to, my in-laws do not celebrate it but somehow on my own I unknowingly started it. This year I managed to survive the hustle-bustle at work and fast without water and food also found two more Punjabi ladies to do the pooja at 4.00. SD found it so amusing that mama is waiting for the moon and kept telling me that he will find it for me and he kept asking me are we going ‘tata’ then why are you all dressed up.

Then there is diwali coming up on 28th and SD’s b’day. SD was born on Choti diwali (a day before diwali) so my mom celebrates his b’day on that day too. As such he is a Halloween baby and his b’day is fast approaching. Project freeze date is also 31st Oct so anyone in IT can imagine the state I am in.

Diwali in our house used to be a huge affair. Now it isn’t the case but mom still insist on doing the shakun and cleaning and she did try the best she could on my first diwali after marriage and SD’s birth but I and she know what we were thinking and the fake smiles.

Diwali celebrations back home used to start almost one month in advance with cleaning, painting the house and distributing sweets to family and friends and everyone coming home to give sweets too. Everywhere we would go we would be offered nuts and sweets and a mandate to eat. In our house mom would take out all the sliver plates, the silver nut boxes, mom would be very strict with us not empty the nuts and dirty the place ( :) ) initially mom and dad used to go to every house to distribute sweets and once me and my bro were big enough we would be given the list and boxes of sweets to go around and only the very important people (elders) mom and dad would go. These days people are becoming health conscious instead of sweets people are distributing nuts, gifts, sugar free sweets.

On the day of diwali since we have been in Chennai for long we would wake up early since by 4 am people will start bursting crackers in the colony and we (me and my bro) would not be allowed, we would quietly watch and though not in our custom mom would still insist on we all taking a good oil-bath and then we would be all excited to go to dad’s office for the pooja where he would normally close the old account book and start a new one and then burst some crackers, distribute sweets to everyone in office and back home after a good lunch we would sleep and wait for the evening.

Evening we all would adore our new clothes mom start the pooja light the diya and me and my brother would decorate the balcony with the diya’s and wait for mom to finish the pooja and after the pooja most of the north Indians would gather up wish everyone a happy diwali with all the sweets, gujia would be a must and then we would start bursting the crackers, dad was a big fan of crackers and so we would always have enough and I remember it would go on till 12pm or 1pm easily and the last used to always be the 10,000 wala ladi… that would go flying everywhere and not stop for a long time…

Now diwali isn’t how it used to be, just a week before diwali and few days after karva chauth we lost the person who meant the world to us. Now diwali is the most difficult of the festival for me to survive. I need to be happy follow most of the formalities and not show mom how I am feeling and not let her feel sad , it brings in happy memories and tears at the same time for all. God does like to play funny games after a few years almost on the same day he put SD in our life’s and now we still don’t know if we should rejoice or remember but I know deep down diwali is not the same anymore for any of us.