Deepawali aka Diwali, this word itself is filled with happiness. Relatives and cousins visiting your place. Loads of gifts and sweets. From conventional kheel-khilaone to chocolate burfi, every sweet at your service. Variety of new clothes for different occasions, from western to traditional, from casual to formal. The time when you light candles and lamps. Fire crackers, almost a synonym for Diwali. The first most important reason to use them, the second being celebration of India's victory over Pakistan in cricket match.
Though now a days, getting Diwali vacations for a week, is next to impossible. It is a matter of joy even if you can manage to get leave for choti & badi Diwali. Diwali's definition changes as you grow up. For children, all it means is to have more time to play, get good food and so many people around. During my childhood, two weeks before diwali used to be the most hectic time of the season. Sending Diwali cards by post to more than 60 relatives, helping mom in kitchen, taking care of studies and homework go hand in hand.
As I grew up, all it meant was to spent good lot of time with Mom, Dad n sisters. Breakfast time was the suitable time to decide rest of the day's menu, decoration strategy, most importantly variety and quantity of sweets. Anything could be compromised, but not the mithais, the star attraction of the festival. Let me not disturb your salivary glands by telling the names . Kitchen department used to be Mom's responsibility. My sister or I would help my Mom in kitchen in between. Decoration was taken care by we sisters. The most important sweets department, as I already mentioned was handled by Dad. No recession, no natural disaster, can possibly affect this department. Many a times kitchen and decoration departments have faced quite hard sanctions, but any kind of cost cutting on sweets department was strictly forbidden by my eldest sister, which was gladly accepted by, we the sweets lover family. Every year Dad handled this department quite well.
This year I was alone, far far away from my family, my homeland. Place where lighting crackers other than New Year is totally forbidden. On both the days I felt quite nostalgic, many a times almost on the verge of crying. It really sucks, when you are far away from your family especially when there is a big festival back home. Choti Diwali could not make me feel so bad. Moreover, I was neck deep into my work, so it was ok. The badi diwali day was really tough. No light, no special food, no cracker, though I can manage without the last one. I went to office without any enthusiasm. Come on you can't argue with me on that. There can surely be no motivation to go to office when it is Diwali. I called up my folks so so many times, feeling happy, sad, nostalgic, grinning all at the same time. So I decided to go to my room early and do something to make myself happy. I asked one more Indian friend and told him that I would be doing pooja and if he wishes he can join me, as I am not used to celebrating festivals alone. He said he doesn't celebrate diwali, due to some reason. So immediately, I told him that I would be making special dinner and it would be nice if he can join me. You can call this a tactic, but I had to do it. There is nothing more luring than home made food for people like me. I knew he can't say no to it. :P
Now that the promise to make special dinner was made, it was time for action. So, I quickly made menu and list of things I need to buy. On the way to my room, I stopped by Indian grocery store. I could not dare to buy sweets as they were quite expensive. I quickly made shahi paneer, dry vege potato-onion , salad, raita, matar pulao. As the muhurat for pooja was from 7:30 to 9:00 pm, I had to be super fast. By 8:30, I was ready with decoration. Here are the glimpses:
By the time I finished pooja, my friend also came. After showing my naive skills of pooja, we had dinner. To be honest, nothing was perfect. Just like the day, which was not perfect but happy, dinner was also not perfect but complete. Rice was a little uncooked, dry vege had a little shortage of salt, shahi paneer was too sauer, only raita was under the permissible limits of being perfect. Accepting the fact that not all and everything is perfect, I excuse myself. After all, we are jack of all trades :)
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