Lights, Colours & Nostalgia...

Yup, the lights and colours are back to remind us of all the happy days from the past and to add some more colour to our present and future

5.30AM, my mother woke me up from deep sleep on a cold November Ferozpur morning. Her agenda, I should burst the loudest cracker "The Lakshmi bomb" and remind the entire colony that it’s a Diwali morning and it’s time for the best day of our lives. I was 13 and I was feeling too old to get out of bed and do all this. I felt too old to be doing these things but my mother’s enthusiasm was over my emotions. I would never know if she did it for herself or she was excited for my brother and I on this occasion. I burst the bomb, she smiled and the day of joy for a family, as I remember it, had just begun.

2 years later, it was early noon and my brother and I were experimenting with “Atom Bomb”, The green coloured jute thread wrapped bomb that usually caused a lot of discomfort to the old , the dogs and the already noisy babies of the area. Some of you might remember the Amul Cheese tins that were in demand during the early nineties. We found a few empty ones, placed an “Atom Bomb”, inverted the empty tin over the bomb and light the wick... BOOOMMMM!!!!!.... Where did the damn can go? A few seconds later something fell close to us, it was the tin without the bottom. The bottom must have been blown away to pieces, but we were wrong. After a good 2-3 minutes, a ring fell close by. It was the bottom of the tin and it must have flown very high into the sky to come down this late. We both smiles and a day of experiments, as brothers, had just begun.

Few years later during junior college days, my friends and I collected a selected few crackers like spiralling rockets, loud rockets, coloured rockets, whistling rockets, bomb rockets and more rockets. We kept the bottles inclined on the road and shot the rockets parallel to the road. This was dangerous but I must confess somewhere down under, we were enjoying this in an evil way. The rockets hit a few four wheelers and two wheelers, so we decided to shoot the rockets with a better angle, this time keeping a small stone under the bottleneck. The rockets were more evil than our intentions and landed in the bathroom of the girl’s house who hated our guts. Unfortunately, it was her father who was in the loo and we had to do the only thing that commonly came to our minds.... Run!!!! The days of Running had just begun

Diwali during engineering college was less noisy but equally fun. Myself and Vicky would be the only few students who would not go home to celebrate Diwali. Instead, on one occasion, we had a couple of drinks, picked a friend’s RX100 and hit the road towards the forest searching for a female ghost draped in a white sari carrying a candle (imagine what alcohol can do!!!). We waited till late night, in vain and the stupid babe never turned up. We started our bikes for back home, practised some wheelies and landed in the Sugarcane fields once the front wheel was high up. Picked up self, the bike and searched for the rider who was fisting the road for not being able to complete the wheelie for a longer duration. Somehow reached the hostel room and got the bike repaired the next morning along with a few glasses of lime juice to cut the hangover from the previous evening. The days of drinking on Diwali, with friends, had just begun.

Diwali 2 years back, some miniature lanterns with small candles inside, colourful rangoli’s, a lot of diya’s collected by mother from all the years and the four of us together. Sweets were prepared at home, new clothes were customary for all four and the entire house was lit well beyond our imagination. My mother lit a few sparklers, dad was trying his hand at a few bombs and brother was sending rockets way up, while I was capturing memories for all. We finished our small celebration in 15 minutes, ate sweets and vada’s, feasted on some lovely dinner made by mom and hit the sack. While in bed, I looked up and thought, this was to be the last Diwali as a family, as this family!!! The days of expanding my family, losing some and gaining others, with love lost and found, had just begun.

These are my memories of the life that revolved around Diwali... all of you have one, revisit them, since Diwali is a season of Lights, colours & nostalgia....

Happy Diwali to all!!!!