Hey u'all
First of all wishing you a very happy and prosperous deepavali and may god shower you with lots of love and wealth throughout your life.
For those of you who dont know Deepavali, it is one of the biggest festivals in India and its the FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS. People adorn their houses with lots and lots of lights, lanterns, oil lamps etc., etc., and it generally lasts for 3 days. It is said that Goddess Lakhsmi walks into the houses which are bright and showers the family with wealth and blessings.
Damn (pardon the word usage), I have been writing pretty long posts nowadays - this is going to be one of them.
There are a lot of stories associated with the 3 days of Deepavali. I will not bore you all with the tons of stories right now. If you wanted to know that, you would have been reading something else - maybe I will put up the stories that I heard from my parents in another post, but for now, I just want to talk about my memories from the Deepavali at my house.
When we were kids, the only excitement during festivals was new clothes, amazing food, yummy sweets to eat and in the case of Deepavali, excitement over the kind of crackers we were going to burn and the quantity of crackers each of us would get. There would always be a fight over that ofcourse.
Several memories come into mind, when I sit down to think about it. My pappa (dad) used to get the pre-packaged boxes of variety crackers, one for each of us - me and my sis. The box contained one or more of the following smaller boxes - lakshmi pataki (its a small cracker), bijli pataki (even smaller), atom bombs (not the ones that we know would destroy cities ofcourse) - this kind of bomb would make a loud sound, bidrindlu - which is like a fountain of lights when lit, rockets (very small ones), electric crackers, nelachakras (to light on the ground), vishnu chakras (to light in the hands with a metal stick to hold each of them) - all of them in smaller sizes of course for kids.
Me and my sis used to exchange even among those small boxes, I used to get to light all the vishnu chakras - she was scared to hold that thing in her hand. Anyways, we used to light our own share of crackers, and then pappa would have brought some fancy crackers separately. We used to watch him light those - some of them were whistling fountains, butterfly, bigger rockets etc., - things which were dangerous for kids. After lighting all the crackers, we used to have dinner. We used to gobble up the food so fast on those days that amma (mom) used to tease us about it on other days. This was because another activity was in store for us during Deepavali.
Our house had a nice view of the city from our backyard and terrace, and we could see the crackers and lights all over the city. We used to have fun - lets call it - cracker gazing :P It was so amazing to see the whole city lit up with lights and also bursting various kinds of crackers and we could hear all the sounds from the bombs, the malas (garlands of crackers), whistles. It was a sight when the fancy firecrackers used to burst high up in the sky lighting up most of the neighborhood around it !! It was a heavenly sight. Its one of those things - you have to be there to get the experience. At the end of the day we used to refuse to come inside - because the city never stopped lighting the crackers even though it was well past midnight. BTW, those were the only days we were allowed to stay up late after midnight.
Then comes the awesomest food that my mom used to prepare and the oil massage and oil bath. That used to be a very bothersome time. Getting us kids to stay still while amma applied oil to our hair, face, arms, legs - yes almost to the whole body and then we had to walk it off, so that it seeps into our body, but amma had lot of rules around the house. Dont touch the sofa, sofa cushions, sofa covers, table, walls, blah blah and the list goes on... So basically just walk around the house - or rather stay outside the house if you can, but dont touch anything :P Now we understand how difficult it is to clean oil stains, but then, all we wanted to do was play... It was pretty intense both for us and amma. Finally it would be time to take the most-awaited oil bath. Piping hot water - yes, u heard me right, piping hot water was poured over us - mainly to get rid of most of the oil and we had to apply soap like 3 - 4 times to rid the skin completely from the oil - imagine how much oil that would be !! We would scream with the heat...
BTW, all this oil bath and running around would be early morning around 4 am. The previous night, we would have to fill the boiler (after pooja n all that) for heating the water. Wake up early morning at 3 am and all we wanted to do was burst crackers :P But all in all, I miss it nowadays. We hardly wake up at 6 or 7 on weekdays and even later on weekends. 3 am is just too much if you ask me. We would rather stay awake until 3 am than wake up that early :) And who will go to the extent of doing pooja to the boiler that too in the night, filling it with water etc., We have an easier solution now, geysers :P Nobody will be patient enough to get an oil massage and wait for an hour before taking a shower.
But ofcourse we still have the bursting of the crackers, there are so many kinds of crackers available in the market today that its so difficult to select a particular cracker. In comparison, selecting a good phone would be so much easier. But for those of us living in the US currently, even the firecrackers are mostly a no-no, because of the security measures and mostly that we dont normally find firecrackers in the US at this time of the year. For such of us, every year, we keep regretting that we are not in India to enjoy this wonderful time with friends and family. For others who are fortunate to travel to India at this time, way to go people :) Grab all the memories you can of this special day !!
I could go on with my memories from Deepavali at my grandparent's house but I will stop this now and free you from the boredom :) Go enjoy your deepavali !!! I will let you go with a pic from my childhood of the Deepavali day.
HAPPY DEEPAVALI ONCE AGAIN TO ONE AND ALL
- So
First of all wishing you a very happy and prosperous deepavali and may god shower you with lots of love and wealth throughout your life.
For those of you who dont know Deepavali, it is one of the biggest festivals in India and its the FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS. People adorn their houses with lots and lots of lights, lanterns, oil lamps etc., etc., and it generally lasts for 3 days. It is said that Goddess Lakhsmi walks into the houses which are bright and showers the family with wealth and blessings.
Damn (pardon the word usage), I have been writing pretty long posts nowadays - this is going to be one of them.
There are a lot of stories associated with the 3 days of Deepavali. I will not bore you all with the tons of stories right now. If you wanted to know that, you would have been reading something else - maybe I will put up the stories that I heard from my parents in another post, but for now, I just want to talk about my memories from the Deepavali at my house.
When we were kids, the only excitement during festivals was new clothes, amazing food, yummy sweets to eat and in the case of Deepavali, excitement over the kind of crackers we were going to burn and the quantity of crackers each of us would get. There would always be a fight over that ofcourse.
Several memories come into mind, when I sit down to think about it. My pappa (dad) used to get the pre-packaged boxes of variety crackers, one for each of us - me and my sis. The box contained one or more of the following smaller boxes - lakshmi pataki (its a small cracker), bijli pataki (even smaller), atom bombs (not the ones that we know would destroy cities ofcourse) - this kind of bomb would make a loud sound, bidrindlu - which is like a fountain of lights when lit, rockets (very small ones), electric crackers, nelachakras (to light on the ground), vishnu chakras (to light in the hands with a metal stick to hold each of them) - all of them in smaller sizes of course for kids.
Me and my sis used to exchange even among those small boxes, I used to get to light all the vishnu chakras - she was scared to hold that thing in her hand. Anyways, we used to light our own share of crackers, and then pappa would have brought some fancy crackers separately. We used to watch him light those - some of them were whistling fountains, butterfly, bigger rockets etc., - things which were dangerous for kids. After lighting all the crackers, we used to have dinner. We used to gobble up the food so fast on those days that amma (mom) used to tease us about it on other days. This was because another activity was in store for us during Deepavali.
Our house had a nice view of the city from our backyard and terrace, and we could see the crackers and lights all over the city. We used to have fun - lets call it - cracker gazing :P It was so amazing to see the whole city lit up with lights and also bursting various kinds of crackers and we could hear all the sounds from the bombs, the malas (garlands of crackers), whistles. It was a sight when the fancy firecrackers used to burst high up in the sky lighting up most of the neighborhood around it !! It was a heavenly sight. Its one of those things - you have to be there to get the experience. At the end of the day we used to refuse to come inside - because the city never stopped lighting the crackers even though it was well past midnight. BTW, those were the only days we were allowed to stay up late after midnight.
Then comes the awesomest food that my mom used to prepare and the oil massage and oil bath. That used to be a very bothersome time. Getting us kids to stay still while amma applied oil to our hair, face, arms, legs - yes almost to the whole body and then we had to walk it off, so that it seeps into our body, but amma had lot of rules around the house. Dont touch the sofa, sofa cushions, sofa covers, table, walls, blah blah and the list goes on... So basically just walk around the house - or rather stay outside the house if you can, but dont touch anything :P Now we understand how difficult it is to clean oil stains, but then, all we wanted to do was play... It was pretty intense both for us and amma. Finally it would be time to take the most-awaited oil bath. Piping hot water - yes, u heard me right, piping hot water was poured over us - mainly to get rid of most of the oil and we had to apply soap like 3 - 4 times to rid the skin completely from the oil - imagine how much oil that would be !! We would scream with the heat...
BTW, all this oil bath and running around would be early morning around 4 am. The previous night, we would have to fill the boiler (after pooja n all that) for heating the water. Wake up early morning at 3 am and all we wanted to do was burst crackers :P But all in all, I miss it nowadays. We hardly wake up at 6 or 7 on weekdays and even later on weekends. 3 am is just too much if you ask me. We would rather stay awake until 3 am than wake up that early :) And who will go to the extent of doing pooja to the boiler that too in the night, filling it with water etc., We have an easier solution now, geysers :P Nobody will be patient enough to get an oil massage and wait for an hour before taking a shower.
But ofcourse we still have the bursting of the crackers, there are so many kinds of crackers available in the market today that its so difficult to select a particular cracker. In comparison, selecting a good phone would be so much easier. But for those of us living in the US currently, even the firecrackers are mostly a no-no, because of the security measures and mostly that we dont normally find firecrackers in the US at this time of the year. For such of us, every year, we keep regretting that we are not in India to enjoy this wonderful time with friends and family. For others who are fortunate to travel to India at this time, way to go people :) Grab all the memories you can of this special day !!
I could go on with my memories from Deepavali at my grandparent's house but I will stop this now and free you from the boredom :) Go enjoy your deepavali !!! I will let you go with a pic from my childhood of the Deepavali day.
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| This is me and my sister lighting electric crackers. BTW we used to try to write our names in the air while twirling the crackers :) Believe me you should try it once, its beautiful !! |
HAPPY DEEPAVALI ONCE AGAIN TO ONE AND ALL
- So
