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.


It was a time when you used to be in your early teenage, when it was diwali time people used to ask, suntv la enna padam pa podran(what movie are they showing in suntv). We just burst out saying our favorite hero’s movie and reserve slots for tv in our homes. Wake up that morning with the boom boom sounds of bursting crackers from the kids near your house, curse them and brush your teeth watching the patti mandram with solomon pappaiyya, and specially waiting for Raja to complete his speech, amidst all advertisements, and watch out for your favorite actor’s movie, once it gets over it’s the time for your favorite hero’s interview, another movie, and so far as the game progresses, you again curse those innocent kids for lighting up an atom bomb when your favorite punch dialog appears on your screen, or when you are about to pour sambhar into your plate, and finally in the evening you decide to give up the boring tv programs. Now you have become a yo-yo dude who has a drunken 2MegaPixel camera in your most-wanted-by-friends, mobile of the year, you goto your terrace, just to take pictures of the color color kambi matthappu, and the sparkling sizzlers in the air. If you got some waste time, you also help your younger little cousin to light up his flower pots and putting scene in front of him, naangalam anda kaalathule atom bomb a air la thuki vedichavanga (we all burst atom bomb in air). Wait for some more time in your terrace to get hit by some rotten rocket falling over your head, and then coming back home complaining to amma, then goto your school the next day, just to discuss about what all programs were good on what all channels and what did you miss on the previous day.



It is the time now when we get a day off for a festival, how we try to club it up with any weekend to get more of a vacation, not to enjoy any hometown, or nature, but just to post some ‘meaningful’ status updates and posts like this :P Its time when someone abroad pings and asks you what is special for diwali, and you reply back saying nothing much, its just another holiday on a weekday. It’s the time when your company gives an optional holiday, here it goes, you wake up on the day, pretty soon, may be at 10 or 11 am, soon for a holiday, just because your mom lifts you up and pours a litre of oil on your head, if (un)*lucky, get a movie ticket for a first day first show, and post the photos of the tickets in facebook, then check in @Sathyam cinemas with your friends, come back home and post that the movie rocked/sucked, ping your friends and ask what they did, peep into the tv once in a while, or in the background, google search for diwali wishes and post the photos in facebook, send crackers through some idiotic facebook apps, reply to your random friends who never remember you for the rest of the year wish you in facebook for diwali, take a step out of the house to see no kid bursting crackers, go back to office the next day, and type a mail Sweets @ my desk, Back from home, as if they are home made sweets (PS: we can afford adyar ananda bhavan sweets ourselves :P), get back to your routine life, and plan for the next festival, to waste time in facebook again.