Monday, October 23, 2006

Festival of Lights and "Joy"

The past few days have just flown....what with festival season on in full swing ...It is all the more special for us as it is our lil bundle of Joys first Diwali....well actually its his "first" everything....so in other words everyday is a first for him and for us as well....

Diwali is a lovely festival... as in the lights bit... and the food and festivities bit... am not so "hot" about the crackers bit anymore...
As kids we would wait for Diwali time... it would mean shopping with Dad for 'baaji-potka'...initially both my brother and I would get on to Dad's scooter and leave home to come back grinning from ear to ear....balancing a big bag of crackers and our selves behind Dad...Over the years we progressed to making the trip in the car with lots of room for the crackers...but sadly came back with not that many...reason inflation in the market and a Dads wallet which was not....correspondingly bulky...

Nonetheless, we used to have a blast ....Ma would visit the Blind School Diwali Mela and come back loaded with Diyas and candles...which we would as a family decorate and light all over the house... My parents home is a beautiful, big and two and a half storeyed independent house.. so all lit up it would look quite breath taking......
The lighting of candles and diyas became a family ritual and tradition which I tried to follow even after I married and moved away... Every year both the Husband and I would buy Diyas and decorate our home... I remember our first Diwali together in Bangalore... our flat looked beautiful and we had a huge gang of friends over for dinner... I cooked mutton and pullao and kaali daal and there were lots of sweets... everyone came all dressed up ... after dinner we burst some crackers and then after midnight went over to The Park Hotels coffee shop for coffee and another round of dessert...lovely...
Diwali in Bangalore was also spent gambling.. actually learning to gamble on 5 rupee stakes and having heart failures when we lost sums as large as 20 bucks... lol.. those were the days...
Our second Diwali was spent in Hyderabad... we had just about moved and knew very few people... but called them over nonetheless. ..and decorated the flat and had a nice time...
Our third Diwali ..is this year and soooo special.... we are glad we have been able to share this special festival this year with our family and close friends....
This year too we lit up our apartment with Diyas which I picked up from the old Family haunt.. yes the Blind School Diwali Mela... and then went over to my cousins place as it was also Kali Puja...
Oh! I so love this festival season in India.. all over the country we celebrate these few months... and the best thing about it is that it brings everyone together... which is so special.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I am doing a feature on blogger moms and I would really appreciate if you could email me your answers at my email- govardhini@rediffmail.com.

-What inspired you to start blogging in the first place?

-What is your blogging community like? What about the Indian scenario?

-What keeps you going? In spite of your hectic schedule you find time to blog. How do you do it?

-What do you think parents like to blog about most?

-How relevant is blogging in India when the internet community here is really miniscule?

I would really appreciate it if you could help me out.

Best regards,
Neelima