Happy Diwali ..an email experience
Its Diwali and I feel its more in my heart than anything else. I am sitting here in the Co-op (thats where I live now) reading all that mail with Happy Diwali messages in it and I feel that my first statement was wrong.
Its been about a few days now that I get these mails and e-cards from friends, family other random people who cc-ed the message to everybody they knew or did not know. Mail which I would have deleted as spam and muttered a silent curse to those who can't tell the difference between a 'reply to' and 'reply to all'. The silliest message warms my heart. My aunt from Atlanta sent the Diwali sweets and fried stuff the other day. Its so good eating those chaklis. After a few bites one remembers the million times I must have sneaked up and stole chaklis as they were just done being fried. Chaklis that too hot to be eaten. Its cold outside and so is my chakli. But still its Diwail nevertheless.
Its seems so long ago that all I looked forward to was fire-works and of course the Diwali holidays. I wonder when I grew up and got over the fireworks craze. Then of course the great thing about Diwali was the New Year and all the money that was given for touching the feet of elders. I always spent it within the hour and it was always a tape. ( Yeah those days when I bought tapes).
The crowds on Main Street have been growing. It must be crazy right now. Those were the days when the pavement was wider and the hawkers were a huge presence.
Our wada in the evenings full of the acrid smoke and waste of the fire crackers. Mouths cloyed with the sweets. Relatives, friends...It was crazy.
Right now its me squatted on the floor reading those mails and revisting those memories. Its just another Friday in Ann Arbor. Tomorrows the football game against Purdue. For me though tomorrow will be Happy Diwali.
There are periods of sudden quietness in Diwali that are eerie. A time when all are out of the house and the neighbourhood is suddenly quiet. No crackers except the ones that light the sky in the distance. In this sudden quietness you see this 'diya' in the dark corner flickering. One see it fight with the wind to stay lit. I feel a little like that diya now. One diya and its still Diwali!

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