🪔DIWALIs OF DECEMBER 🪔

There used to be a golden age of annual vacations once upon a long forgotten time. These school holidays would invariably arrive after the first mid-week of November until school reopened on the first Monday of January in the coming year.

Diwali that would have just gone by would be only a cozy affair with family and a few good friends at whose homes invitations would be extended for lunch or dinner with potluck themes.

But the real deal was the treat that was waiting for us back home. My parents, empty nesters would eagerly await the arrival of Babylou as soon as November arrived.

“There's a surprise for you later,” my father would chime as soon as she crossed the threshold. He thoughtfully bought a packet each of the various firecrackers available during the festive season and kept those aside.

These would be spread out in the morning sun until high noon everyday for a week before our arrival until they were fried to a crisp-- ready to crackle and sparkle like a million dazzles of joy when Babylou lit them.

Diwali of December was a festival of our own every year until a couple of years ago when border lockdown struck like an unfair retribution on those flying back home to family. This ritual too met its fate and put a damper on Babylou’s childlike exuberance.

When the borders opened up, she was well into graduation from high school. The both of us made a hasty trip back home to make up for the 3 years of being corralled in an imposed confinement. But this time it was in the summer of 2023. We missed the Diwali at home with my parents. But that was my intuition having its way. The Fall of 2023 was a literal fall. A downhill sweep which never righted itself again. The summer of 2023 was our last happy trip back home.

Then came 2024, needless to say that was when the hourglass sealed its deal and tipped on its whim and fancy.

And here I am in 2025. Time is just like a dream. Waves of a time frame that speeds up dizzily makes me wonder if it ever was real. Or an illusory trick of the mind?

Truth be told, from last year's Diwali that I haven't even committed to my exhausted memory, to today's ---I've lived and died a million times over… In more ways than in any runaway imagination.

****

Conventionally, after a death in the immediate family, flashy celebrations of festivities are excused and solemn observations are held in place for at least a year.

On that principle, it's a quiet ambience today wherein I string fairy lights twinkling with a hoard of good memories. The splatter of lights that shot up to the skies as the firecrackers burst open like a gazillion stars, are today only a reflection of the shine from decades ago when I spent a carefree Diwali as a child, when I relived my childhood through Babylou when she bonded with her grandfather in a similar manner.

Diwali of December will be now mine to hold tenderly only in my dreams.

PIC COURTESY: PINTEREST

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