So after last year’s lull, Diwali is back with a bang! Quite literally, the ban on firecrackers notwithstanding.
The Diwali celebrations started off with a Diwali mela in our society on the weekend preceding Diwali. The next couple of days went in meeting our relatives who stay nearby and exchanging Diwali sweets. We also got to meet the new baby in the family, who had come to India for the first time.
Baby meets great-grandparents for the first time!
Diwali usually means some frantic house cleaning but since we our house was painted recently, I happily skipped this part. A few lights (some old, some new), a few savories (we were overloaded with sweets), and a few flowers – and we were Diwali ready!
After a small Puja, we spent the evening greeting friends and neighbors and walking around the society, admiring the lights. No firecrackers for us!
I have been reading voraciously since the age of five when I first discovered the joys of reading. I would lap up anything in print. Unrolling an emptied newspaper cone with one hand, stuffing roasted peanuts in my mouth with the other, all the while devouring the printed content on the cone with my eyes, was one of my first experiences in hedonistic pleasure.
In fact, sometimes I feel that I am on an adventurous journey through the secret dreamworld of other people's imaginations, interspersed with occasional visits to my own life to attend events like graduation, first job, marriage, and so on.
As a true-blue reader, I think I am uniquely qualified to comment on and critique other people's works of labour. I can tell exactly what puts the average reader to sleep, what sets their pulse racing, and what has them salivating for more.
Write to me at leenatpandey@gmail.com.
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WordJini 