On Diwali...

Diwali! The festival of lights!

Thanks to the Chinese invasion of the Indian markets there are gorgeous lights being sold at every street corner and the city lights up after like a fairytale after dark. Pretty. So are the varied fireworks( true I don't completely advocate them, given the sound and air pollution; but then you can't agree with everything in the world).

So overall a pretty picture.

Time for some good old fashioned nostalgia.

Let me go back in time to 1991 and Calcutta( It became Kolkata way after that). Kaali Pujo 1991. One hell of a

vacation.

47 Ballygunge Gardens. What a palace it was in it's hey day. Always abuzz with activity, full of life. Elders, a

tad younger than most, the young lads and ladies, a tad older than most, and us kids. Where normal days were far from quiet, festivals of course brought in a lot more fun and frolic. Diwali was no exception.

It was my first Diwali/Kaali Pujo in Calcutta( I've only seen one other) and when it comes to festivities,

Calcuttans can simply awe you out of your senses. I remember marveling the light work and the atmosphere.

Way before the Laser era, the Pujo Pandals were spinning stories in light in the Calcutta Pujos. I don't quite remember each tiny detail, but I find the crowd and the lights still emerge clearly when I close my eyes and go back there.

And then diwali at home-The mishti, the people, the fireworks et all. What fun. People from 2 to 70, under

the dark, moonless sky, laughing, trading fireworks and sharing love.

I remember there were a lot of patake, phuljharis in every hand and rockets all over the sky; teasing and

shouting on the terrace next to my grandmom's puja ghar.

Then bhai phota the next day. Bhai phota(Bhai dooj/Bhau beej, in other parts of the country) is the celebration of the brother-sister relationship and what a celebration it was; truly sentimental and truly fun. Loads of fish and even more mithais( Maach and Mishti- the bong staple)

I tried to relive the same feeling in 1997 again. Oh, how excited I was, all of 13; and I was terribly disappointed. What I had not considered was and understand now, is that it was not the occassion, the vacation, the house or the city that made Diwali so special in '91. It was my family- all under the same roof.

Time steals. It stole life out of that house- literally and figuratively. The not so young youth grew older and got pulled into the web of family life. Some moved away physically, the rest mentally. The not so old elders, watched time scatter the younger ones; some of them withdrew into their impressions of the past, some into their failing bodies and some, like my darling grandmother decided to leave the world behind for good.

Us kids? Well we no longer are kids. I guess we lost our childhood way earlier than our previous generation.

This diwali I think of that old house and what it has seen. Maybe those lifeless bricks go back in time every now and then, maybe they hear the laugh and feel the warmth. Maybe the sky above is lit up with a thousand pretty fireworks and yet 47 Ballygunge gardens dreams of another day...

And I go back in time with it, to hear that familiar cackle and feel the love....