Diwali–Yet Another Holiday, on a Weekday

It was a time when you used to be that little boy, well dressed up on a weekday evening, after attending your last working day at school before diwali, and standing next to the lonely creaky windows, just staring outside looking for your dad to return home, so that you would take off to your grandma’s place to celebrate your traditional diwali, when it was time to play with all your cousins( sry, they were knows as annen/ thambi/ machan/ atthan/ machis) , it was a great time shared with your chitapas, chitthis, mamas and athais. You enter your own traditional house, starring open roof-tops, and rest topped with red-brick tiles, nothing other than (vaasal vecha ottu veedu). The first thing you go and search is the big box that is hidden behind the one and only cot inside the one and only bedroom, where noone sleeps. The next step is to split them equally among our cousins, fighting who will light up the one extra rocket in the pack, lighting up lakshmi vedi in your hand and throwing them apart, bursting the atom bomb inside the box, just to see the box tearing into pieces and flying in all 6 directions, lighting a candle and rapidly, throwing up all the bijili vedis, kuruvi vedi, ganesh vedi, tearing a thousand wala into two five hundred walas just because we are two people and lighting them together, the sangu chakkram that bursts, the buss vaanam that goes buss, color color match boxes, sparkling suru suru vathis, rukmini rockets, 7 shots, parachutes, pambu maathrais and after all this, once you are tired, you save up the rest you have for Karthigai Deepam.

கற்பவை கற்றபின்

மாந்தர் நின்சொல் அறவே மதியார்
அச்சொல் பொன்சொல் போன்றதெனினும்
அவருள் ஒருவராய் நீ இல்லாவிடின்

மாந்தர் நின்சொல் பொன்சொல் என்பார்
நீ சிரும்பிகைக்கும் வேளையிலும்
நீயே அவரின் அவசியம் எனில்

தோல்வி உற்றேன் பலமுறை நான்
எனினும், தோள்கொடுக்க யாருமில்லை
புரிந்து கொண்டேன் இறுதியில் தான்
உன் உயிர்த் தோழன் நீயே என்று