In today’s world Diwali has become just another holiday and many people actually lock up their homes and take off on a break somewhere. Gone is the excitement of making new clothes, cleaning up the house , eating special food and making memories with family.
Over the past fifty years I have celebrated many Diwalis , most happy and some sad sometimes with boisterous family gatherings and sometimes in relative peace and quiet. One Diwali that stands out in my mind is the one we celebrated in Nagpur with Vachi Aji who was soon going to wind up her establishment and move in with her son.She was the nicest of my grandma’s sisters and as the youngest, the only one to outlive her siblings.
Our excitement began with the overnight journey in a train that chugged along the countryside, further heightened by the change over to the coal engine that left our faces blackened by the sooty smoke, the games that we played with other people in the compartment and finally the tiny pig tail bobbing on the head of Aji’s
Man Friday Tarachand who had come to
receive us at the station.
As we got out of the Ambassador taxi Aji’s old cocker spaniel lumbered out of the door, close on her heels as she came out like a Pooh Bear waddling from side to side to welcome us with a warm smile and bear hugs after we had bent down to touch her feet in respectful greeting. She herself couldn’t stop commenting on our soot blackened faces and warned
us not to touch her shining brass tins filled with yummy Diwali goodies (
laddoo, chakli, shev, karanji,chivda) until we washed up.
While the grownups gossiped, my cousins and I were given the run of the house. It was exciting to go around the huge gardens, exploring the numerous rooms and the large verandah that ran around the house. We were also given the task of decorating the verandah and the outside with rangoli patterns and making paper lanterns for Tarachand to hang. As evening fell, he lined up the oil wick clay lamps all along the verandah flanking the lantern on the main doorway and when the sun set, the house looked magical with our little paper lanterns dancing in tandem with the flickering lamps below.
On Diwali morning we were woken up before day break and taken to
the verandah at the back which led to the bath room where we found a row of
wooden seats (paat) , decorated with rangoli patterns and flickering clay lamps.
Even though it was really cold and we could see our breaths coming out of our mouths, Aji ignored our shivering and chattering teeth and insisted we strip down to our panties and sit so that she could begin her scented oil massage. Our protests that she was being rough were laughingly scoffed off with her explanation that our parched skins were crying out for nourishment just as our tired limbs were aching to be massaged and relaxed that only she could provide with her firm and loving hands.
One by one we were led into the bathroom, which filled up with steam as the water from the traditional coal fired water heater gushed into the shiny copper vessel below. Once again, we were made to sit on a paat and she rubbed us down with mixture
of scented herbs, fresh cream and turmeric to wash off the oil and leave our
skins gleaming and clean. When the last bit of hot water was poured over the head,Tarachand let off a volley of firecrackers, a strip for each one of us as we came out enveloped in soft towels. Then, all clean and dressed we were each of us given a lit phooljhadi to welcome the new dawn.
Happy Diwali!
Twenty- five Seven 