I love the smell of the crackers in the early morning fog ( when it used to be the case few years back, even in Chennai ). Deepavali....a festival which used to bring so much joy and festivities, seems to have lost its sheen over the years. While I can understand that people climbing the age ladder are burdened by day-to-day issues, whats wrong with the kids and young adults ? There are tell-tale signs of waning interest among the public - the reduced uptake of crackers, relatively less of the milling crowds in areas other than T.Nagar, families preferring to outsource making of sweets, far fewer exchanges of sweets with friends and families, and the most of all....the near death of sending greeting cards on this auspicious day.
I made all the right noises of making sure that this Deepavali was better than last year, when I burst crackers to my heart's fill with my companion - my neighbour's son who is now into his 2nd year at college. I couldnt even spot him this year, he was busy watching TV :-). My dad, the perfectionist that he is, got lists of crackers and also took a stock-check of last year's remnants. He dutifully gave me the price lists and also ticked the items that I probably should buy ( that was to ensure that I dont go on a spending spree, which I normally do ). Another lazy friend of mine, was given a similar onerous task and we decided to set out on the hunt together. There were very few cracker shops around, and I recommended a factory outlet type pile-up of the "Cock (Seval)" brand. However, one look at the queues at around 7PM and we tucked our tails between our legs and decided to pay them a visit at 10 PM, when there would be less clamouring. What I thought was a smart move, proved to be plain dumb in the end. The smart move was a camouflage for our signs of irritability, impatience, and most of all...plain laziness in doing the simple tasks, while we worried about the bigger tasks on hand. At 10 PM, we scrounged for whatever remained in the cracker shop and I bought exactly 3 packs of crackers worth Rs.231 ( am sure my dad thought that suddenly I had become prudent ) to add to my arsenal from last year, while my comrade bought for Rs.780 to meet his and his little cousins' demands.
On the D-day, I got up late at around 8:30 AM ( my buddy from school said he was supposed to getup at 3:30 AM, and I got to check with him if he really did that ) and was in a state of trance for the whole day from that moment. Who on earth will watch "Revolutionary Road" until 2AM and then read something upto 3 AM on a festive occasion. Well I did :-). I had the perfunctory oil bath, and lo and behold - I had a Van Heusen shirt to go with the brand new lungi, since I couldnt find Louis Phillipe all black trousers in the few shops I checked. I sleepwalked through the lighting of two "sarams" and then hounded back to dig into the most interesting event of the day - the vadais, the suliyums, the idlis and the amazing vegetable sambar and cocounut chutney. Man-o-man, what a relief and I couldnt help but snooze for about an hour or so. I was back again with my laptop and my parents were probably sick of me sitting like a yogi with laptop and "the-quest-for-truth" type expression on my face. Soon enough, I watched "Nadodigal" alongwith my parents and I must say that it was one of best movies propounding "friendship" without any pro-longed monologue on the subject.
The day was drawing to a close after I paid a visit to the neighbourhood temple with my parents. It took quite a bit of effort to coerce my mom to light few sparklers, she seemed to be tired after the last one week's labour in kitchen and was surely worried about something, and missed my brother ( who was helping the Serbian Broadcasting Corporation ). I took few photos of my mom in her new sari and dad, who looked dapper in his corduroy brown pants and the sandalwood coloured shirt. Another Deepavali was over and I got back to the CL20 where Sehwag was providing the missing fireworks.
