Once again the past year just flew by since diwali. Growing up in Oman, all my knowledge of diwali was restricted to my memorized hindi essay ‘mera priya tyauhaar’ (my favorite festival), like most other children who grew up in the gulf. I knew why we celebrated diwali, how we celebrated it, but it was all restricted to videos in the television.
Celebration of this festival was entirely different in the gulf. There were no crackers, except for a few that were smuggled into some local Indian store. But the chances of getting hold of those dwindled from barely anything to nothing at all. Preparation for diwali would begin a week prior to the festival with amma going on a marathon cooking session. She’d make 7-8 kinds of barfis for us, and 2-3 other kinds for a couple of other aunties.
The day of the festival began with our phone ringing at 5am with relatives from India calling to wish us. Since we got the day off, I’d slowly wake up around 10 am and wear some jango salwar and start distributing sweets around my building following my mother’s pre-planned script:
Me: ‘Hi aunty. amma wanted me to wish you a happy deepavali and give you some sweets.’
Aunty (in some old nighty) : ‘Ohhh. Thank you baby. What a pretty salwar. Wait one minute ok?’
And then aunty would run in to her kitchen. Take if the sweets fom our dabba and return it to us with some sweets from her house. Talk about the heights of recycling!
The evening witnessed appa and me driving around to people’s houses to distribute more sweets, while a bunch of other kids came to our house with boxes of sweets. I always secretly wondered why we didn’t just give sweets from one house to the other. The dabbas were being recycled, why not the sweets too?
During these rides appa would always remind me how unfortunate I was to be celebrating deepavali in such a boring way.
‘In our days we’d wake up at 4 am. Ajji would oil our hair and we’d run out and burst crackers….Here all we do is feed you unfortunate souls sweets all the time..cha!’
Deepavali was also a time for enemies to show off in school via their moms. “Bhala tumhaari mummy ki sweets meri mummy se behtar kaise?” Recess was chaotic with students storming in an out of classrooms munching on every sweet that our hands found. This goes without saying, but our teachers were also flooded with many boxes of sweets.
For being accustomed to such a celebration, I was in for an entirely novel and exciting treat last year when my parents announced that we’d be in Bangalore for diwali. The essay that I wrote envisioning the perfect diwali finally came true. The bursting of crackers began at 4am and probably didn’t stop for the next week. The roads were filled with tonnes of bits and pieces paper, the already pathetic and slow traffic in Blore was slower, unknown relatives were introduced, and I could go on — but it was one of the best times ever in my life. 
Yea, its an entirely different feeling when you are at home for a festival. Thanks to the very friendly and welcoming desi population in Nashville, I haven’t been missing home a lot. After making some mandatory calls to wish people I’m getting ready to go to the library. Yea things are a little different, but the realization of the occurrence of a festival is alive. The local temple supposedly has a decent cracker bursting session. We had a potluck last night. And while I do miss the hustle bustle of people flooding in and out of our house, the noise of the crackers, the noise of the telephone ringing, the excitement of new clothes — this is something special too, and I hope it is the same for everyone. So here’s to wishing all of you a very happy and safe deepavali 
Image courtesy: festivals of India album — facebook.
Happy Diwali
best wishes
and i’d love to point out how much you missed by not celebrating Diwali in India but in the spirit of the season i’ll let it pass
Happy Diwali! Lol @ jango salwar! Can we have an example? :p
the post is a year late, but then reading your stuff reminds me of tinkle!
I was there for Diwali this year and all I was thinking was – NOISY! Hrumph!
sigh. we shoudl switch places just for deepavali. about it being noisy, lets not even get into that discussion