It’s that time of the year – Diwali – the time my conscience stands glaring at me, tapping its feet impatiently. ‘Get going,’ it says, ‘dust, clean, polish, organise.’
I drag my feet. I procrastinate, I take refuge behind my laptop, hide myself away in a book. Yet, each time I look up, She’s there, waiting. And so I begin slowly, reluctantly and by the time I’m halfway there, Diwali is upon us.
Over the years I have learnt to let go, to know that I will be Diwali-ready only by the time Christmas rolls around. And that has to be okay.
I am so very glad and grateful I have the freedom to do things exactly the way I want to – to let go of traditions I find taxing, to adopt new ones that make the festival fun.
I have help at hand – I can outsource all my cleaning. I can scroll through Instagram and order home-made mithais and namkeens, I can get readymade rangolis to lay out at my door, I can call people to put up the lights and pretty up my home.
Life’s easy.
The other day, I told my sister I was doing away with earthen diyas this year – just the water-lit ones and Chinese lights, I said. No oil, no mess.
‘Put at least the shagun ke seven’ she insisted.
‘Nah!’ I said, ‘too much trouble’.
And yet, minutes later, there I was on Big Basket and ordering a dozen earthen diyas. My sister, truly, is sometimes worse than my conscience.
I also got myself a crafting kit and it came with every little thing thoughtfully included. MDF cutouts, paints, brushes, bits of decorative glass, glue — everything. Oh and there are also Youtube tutorials in case you needed help. Everything on a platter.
Back in the day, I’d have scavenged for bits of cardboard (MDF was out of the question), mixed paints from my old stash, dug out decorative bits salvaged from past Diwalis — bits of glass, broken bangles, sequins from old dupattas or discarded showpieces. Then I would have put it all together. There was no guarantee that it would have looked pretty, but it would have been all mine.
While I love the convenience of it all, part of me wonders if making life too easy spells the end of that uniquely Indian jugaad spirit — the joy of creating something beautiful from nothing.
As I took the diyas from the delivery boy, a tiny wave of nostalgia hit.
No, I most certainly do not miss my mother’s cleaning frenzy but I do miss the excitement of it all — the starched new clothes, cleaning and soaking diyas, planning the menu, making the rangoli, doing things together.
Our home in the University campus had a long driveway and my sister and I would spend all Diwali afternoon lining it with candles to be lit after the puja. While we never had Diwali parties, there would be a constant flow of people dropping by to wish us. How we complained back then!
Nostalgia has a way of softening the edges, of lighting up the past with rose tints, I remind myself with a mental shake. It makes us forget the unpleasantness, leaving behind a longing for the past.
And that, dear friend, is a recipe for unhappiness.
The past is the past and that’s where it should remain. I keep it as a happy memory, but move on to be in the now.
And so I go ahead and enjoy the ease of my DIY kit, I put marigold flowers in golden pots painted by N, add a border around the readymade rangoli, and I light my seven earthen diyas flanked by two dozen water-lit ones, all twinkling alongside the blinking Chinese lights.
Diwali has a way of finding its magic. Maybe it’s not in the scrubbing or the cooking anymore, but in the glow of the diyas — the ones I swore I wouldn’t buy — reminding me that some traditions, no matter how much we resist, have a way of lighting their way back into our lives. And then there are new ones that happily coexist with the old.
Times are changing, as everything is wont to do.
Perhaps, every generation builds its own version of Diwali — some with effort, some with ease. What matters is that the essence stays: the light we bring into our homes, and the warmth we share.
That’s the one thing my conscience and I can finally agree on.
Here’s hoping the spirit of Diwali lights up all our lives, bringing peace and prosperity, no matter how we choose to celebrate it.