A Festival In The Making

It was my first diwali with family in India. Oxford has yet to come up with a word that shames “magnificent”. I have witnessed the ultimate, eye-widening, toe-tipping, hands-clenching sensationalism, amazement. I have hugged happiness real tight.

Part 1: PRE CRACKER SHOW

The city untied the ribbon a week before Nov 5: Diwali. All throughout until 2 a.m in the morning, the night was forced for sleeping pills and huge cloud pillows, because the party had started. Rows of lighting started to fall from terrace down 8 or 7 or 6 floors from apartment to apartment. I could see the progress from my majestic balcony, a panorama of a huge part of the city. At nighttime, the city glittered with golds and blushed with reds and swam in silver bulbs, rows and lattice of illumination.

Part 2: DIWALI PREPS

Taking it room-by-room, surface-by-surface, we brushed and cleaned and wiped and vacuumed and polished and dusted, deciding the menu simultaneously.

The kitchen was on running shoes. Savories and delicacies and a lavish carte du jour were in the preparation.

Part 3: DIWALI

Today was it. The morning was fresh and quiet which only lasted for two minutes because our phones were ringing and buzzing, the doorbell kept ringing and buzzing and we were in all-time high spirits!

Morning: Flowers and chocolates and sweets from the deliveryman every hour. Texts and calls and mms on our phones every second!  Each gift, each wish tripled our enthusiasm. There were sweets to be exchanged, calls to be made, cards to be read, kitchen to be supervised that we never got time to breathe. We wore our best, we relished delicious cuisine, and were absolutely merry.

Night: Our terrace. My eyes were broadening as I saw before me, the sky tinkling in hundreds and thousands of fireworks. A firework shot up every second from all directions and areas and distances. They were gold and silver and red and green and purple and yellow. Some came down like silver tinsel, some like golden glitter, others like green spikes, yellow bursts, purple fountains. All sizes, types, shapes, intensities and durations. There were hundreds of them!!  There was no time to follow its spidery smoke because another one shot up at its place an instant later. The whole city was raining with them. We turned around 360 degrees at a constant pace to see the sky being sprayed with them. Dazzling pinwheels high above, pitching sounds, stunning colors, impressive and fresh new twists up above that they made and their trails were lost amidst the new ones. It was exhilarating.