the diwali that was

ok. I was supposed to write this on the 5th of November, but since I had to clean my room which was such a huge mess (by huge mess I mean that there wasn't anymore space for extra mess) hence I took a day off from work and resolved to do the following
a)visit to temple with parents
b)visit my relatives
c)clean my room


and for (c) I had given my reasons, but why the (a) and (b)

ok now, this is another reminiscence...

I was working till the eve of diwali, that was not the only reason which made me feel all sober and loose the actual spirit of Diwali but I no longer felt like saying 'happy deepavali'.. it has become just another day in my life...

rewind button:14 years back..

we were in a joint family system, 9 people including me and 3 more families dropping in a day before deepavali (thats how I spelled it back then) which meant we had 25 odd people at one place and add few more neighbors ... so around 30 people (which feels like a CROWD now) at one place, talking, laughing, bursting crackers and making the entire road into a mess with papers and sleeping after 11-12 in the night and waking up at 4 AM, all drowsy , and waiting for the nallennai to be applied and nalangu to be kept and queue for the bathroom so we can wash soon and wear new clothes, go to temple(that was compulsory on diwali),eat sweets (no botheration about inch gain et al) and crackers again, so much till your ear drum goes, zzooinggg :) this was DIWALI for me... all this was only till I was some 16.

Slowly all of this vanished. We started living in a nuclear family, job, marriage separated every cousin, all thrown up to different corners, we hardly meet. All of us try catching up online or over phone, but we seldom fulfill it..

I no longer find Diwali very interesting ... earlier I used to be SO excited to wear new clothes, because being brought up in a very normal middle class family new clothes on Diwali was more than exciting , it were always special but now, I wear a new dress every other week and the interest factor is close to nil.
None of my cousins are here in Chennai or any near by , and taking time off to come down for Diwali is not very possible cause they utilize it as their 'family time' or to take a break to relax, which I find is very reasonable because only after I started to work do I realize how important breaks and offs are...

this year despite being dead tired because I had slogged for 2 weeks non-stop, I took off from my work not worrying about my loss of pay , woke up soon, let my mother to the oil applying, nalangu rituals, dressed up , went to temple with my parents, then met up cousins, nieces and nephews,gossiped,giggled, came home, tidied up my room upto 78.87% (100% is impossible here) then had a happy lunch with parents, slept like a log in the noon, evening again with my parents... I missed my sister like crazy ... well, can't help... LIFE!

p.s: if not for your sweets, I won't even remember it was Diwali ... thanks Maa :)