Diwali Traditiions

My daughter is moving house. All by herself, packing, labeling, getting the registration done, collecting the deposit from one landlord and paying it to another,signing the papers required, getting her Gas connection set up,…all this while she goes to work, plans unsanctioned out of town trips......phew! She’ll survive on Maggi noodles for the first couple of days and then as soon as the weekend comes around, she’ll swing into decorating mode, after which, she will flood our in-boxes with photographs of her new home from every possible angle.

Diwali comes around with clockwork precision every year and I remember fondly, the last time all four of us were together for it, in 2011, after a gap of four years, when Kiki was away at college. Diwali was just a two day holiday for them in college! She left for college in 2007 and I  continued to do the Rangoli on my own, but there was no joy, no excitement to it. I miss both the kids, but I miss my daughter terribly at Diwali. I am always grumpy around Diwali, unless they’re home.

As a new bride, and then a new mother, surrounded on all sides by tea wives who played Tennis and Golf, with as much panache as they entertained and fasted for Karva Chauth, I still remember how I suddenly wanted to be a little like them, at Diwali,when Kiki was 4 years old. Till then, we had stuck to the fireworks and Mithai– one of which she adored and the other abhorred, even as a baby.

So, in 1992, on one trip to Siliguri from the Garden, I discovered Rangoli powders which looked much like Holi colors to my uninitiated eyes. I bought twelve colors, and armed with more enthusiasm than skill, I sat down to painstakingly draw out with chalk, a pattern of sorts, in one corner of the ‘jaali karma’, on the morning before Diwali. Diyas and candles and crackers had all been bought and kept away in the storeroom, and I was very pleased with myself for having the extra day to remedy anything if it went wrong. Babies were bathed and fed,husband was fed and sent to work, lunch instructions were given to the cook, and I now had a good 5 – 6 hours of Rangoli making. 

“First, make a Chalk Circle. Then make a perfect square around it. Then fill it in with the curly lines and the big Flower, Geometric shapes or whatever else you want”, someone had helpfully said.  This was good advice, I thought to myself as I stood back to admire the perfect circle for 10 minutes. Kiki stood by me looking at it and stealing glances at the big thali heaped with the different Rangoli colors; Madhav was strapped into his high chair,lugged out of the Dining room for the occasion, and he looked round eyed at the circle, nodding his curly head wisely. “Now Mama, you’ll make the flowers, no, Mama” said my little girl as I knelt down to start off on the Square. She sat uncharacteristically patiently on one of the cane chairs even when she was dying to dig her little hands into the Rangoli colors, craning her neck to look at it as it came along.Big Flower was made; tiny lit diyas were made at the corners, curly lines and vines were etched out in chalk, to be filled in with the powders.

I learnt fast that only an ass starts off with the lightest colors; I had to re-do the white lines and the Yellow Vines over and over every-time the green or pink or purple spilled on to them. Light blue swiftly became my least favorite color since it always simpered and allowed the dark blue to bully it and I realized my daughter’s favorite color was purple when her advice for each and every free space was, “Make it Purple Mama!”

There it was! A Huge Yellow Flower outlined in red and white, with green vines and purple leaves in a luridly pink circle; dark Blue Diyas at the corners with red flames, Curly Blue lines on its edges, with purple dots, all finished off with white outlines.

It was HIDEOUS!

 Kiki loved it! She walked all around it in awe and called the maali, bearer, cook and ayah in to look at it, and demanded they be as awestruck as she was!  Quite a Holy Terror she was and the maid, bearer & maali meekly agreed it was the best Rangoli they had ever seen, but old Nanku, the cook, remained non-committal. He sniffed and grunted "Baby, meringue jal jayega" and tootled off. Everyone who came to the house was told “my mama made a Rangoli” and dragged in to admire it,whether they wanted to or not!

And so began a Diwali ritual, which continued for a good 20 years. 

During her rebellious teenage years, she’d show no interest in the Rangoli, but heaven help me if it was not made! Her friends would be invited and asked in the most off-hand manner possible, ‘hey have you seen my Mom’s Rangoli ~ nice, isn’t it!’ A couple of years later, a small stool was brought out for me with a, ‘don’t kneel for so long Ma, here, sit on this and do it’ ~ my daughter, my daadi!  I had a few more lenient years, when she improvised the designs with a stern “No Ma, you cannot make a Ma Kaali with a Blue Face and red tongue!” or a 

“ It’s got to be traditional! Stop it now and make the paisleys in orange with me!”

And then, she grew up and went away, as children are wont to do…  first to College, and then to working a different city. I tried very hard to keep the Tradition going, sending her photos of the latest Rangoli and asking her for suggestions, but it was never the same. It was not the same, lighting the first Diya,  without her lighting it with me ~ it was not the same, feeding my mother in law Mithai, without Kiki doing the same with her grandfather; and it just, was not, the same, looking at the fireworks, without seeing their gleam reflected in Kiki’s eyes.

Today she is decorating her new place, and as expected, our in-boxes have been flooded with photographs, lovely shots of the house, cushions everywhere, shiny wooden furniture! She sounds happy, lighting her diyas, whose wicks she made by hand,  like her grandmother taught her; lighting her ‘mirchi’ lights all around the house; celebrating Diwali with friends.

I know, a small memory lies dormant, waiting for the right time to be resurrected, when she makes orange paisleys (or purple!) in a Rangoli at her own home, with her own kids! 

I wait for that day.