Deepavali

Deepavali! A Beautiful festival I used to look forward to, check in calendar, mark the date, start count down for visiting the only Grandmother's place in Coimbatore. 

I was the oldest of grand child at home every year then. My 2 younger cousins were so adorable. I would be there with my Amma few days ahead of time. My Pattu Paavadai would be ready, blouse perfectly stitched, matching hair clip or ribbon, nail polish to match the outfit (over a period I moved on to wearing dhavani and eventually got my first ever saree at the age of 13. That is a story in itself, saved for another time). 2 days ahead of time, fire crackers would be bought and ready - 2 shares, one from my Appa and another from my Chitappa. That, in itself was quite a lot for standard of those days. Despite that, we'd eagerly wait for the biggest of all, what our Mama would bring from Sivakasi. He'd get loads of them from there, due to his business with Sivakasi Lathe machinery. 

The day before, while our Paati would be busy with being a task master, Murukku Mami (an endearing help who’d come home to make bakshanams) busy making Kai Murukku and hot Jaangri, my Amma and Chithi busy with God knows what 😊, we, kids would be busy with the most important task, making deals, bargaining on already, equally, sorted fire crackers. The cousin who’s younger to me by 3 yrs, the middle one of us cousins, was scared of big ones like rockets, Atom bombs, Lakshmi Vedi, sara vedi etc.. would get all the chakkarams, busvaanams, in exchange for the biggies I’d get. My assistant, the youngest of cousins would keep them with him and share couple with an agreement that I stay with him, help him burst big ones. We would hardly sleep, waiting for our Paati to wake us up to put Oil on our head. Excitement starts mounting from those wee hours of the day. Then, my cousins would say, “Devi, seekram vaa di. Unakkaaga evvalavu neram wait pannaradhu”. Our domestic help would wash my, then, long hair with Shikaikaai, that would take for ages and then the drying process starts 😊. Though my cousins were boys, the fun I had with them, the beautiful times we shared each Deepavali are all etched so hard in my memory as if they happened yesterday. 

Once I got married, not a single Deepavali has ever been as memorable; needless to say, moving abroad, Deepavali became yet another working day in most cases. I stopped getting excited about Deepavali from the age of 18. Now, with my oldest grand kid getting to a stage of understanding things, I am going to make sweet, memorable moments this Deepavali.