DIWALI… THEN AND NOW

Despite living in England my parents always made it a point to celebrate our Indian religious festivals every year and Diwali was always on the top of the list. My mother was a cleanliness freak and she would start feverishly cleaning the whole house, the cupboards and sorting through our clothes to remove anything that might look a bit faded or the wrong size. Now this whole process would start two months before Diwali so it was pretty exhausting for all concerned. I must admit that me and my sisters have all inherited this gift and also go through this crazy routine. It’s like it has been inbred into us and whenever I am cleaning I always feel Mummy is sitting right above me watching me with a big smile on her face!!

We had quite a large family in Manchester and each Chachi would organise a family dinner at their homes where we would all meet up to celebrate together. It was a tradition that friends would pop in to meet for a cup of tea post dinner and Mummy would cook up a whole load of home made naashta and mithai from small kachori to suhalis to nimki to chirwa and for sweets she would make the most yummy badam ka barfi and besan barfi. These would all be laid out on a tray with plates and cups and saucers and we would be given strict instructions that if anyone came whilst they were out we were to make tea and serve them this food. The funniest thing was that despite my parents not being at home people used to love the food so much they would happily come in, eat and then leave. This of course irritated us no end but we were too scared of my mother’s wrath if anyone came and weren’t fed. 

On Diwali day all the family plus half of the Indian community in Manchester used to come home to do the Lakshmi Puja together and they would bring their office diaries and letterheads for the puja too. The whole process used to take a couple of hours and after the aarti had been sung everyone would enjoy the prasad that my mother had lovingly cooked. 

The next day all the Indian community would gather at Gandhi Hall to wish each other Happy New Year or ‘Saal Mubarak’. If Diwali happened to fall near ‘Guy Fawkes Night’ (which is a British festival) we would be able to buy fireworks and light this as well. 

I am so happy that my parents taught us all these traditions as we were growing up as it would have been so easy to just follow only the English customs. They ingrained our family values into us and this has really helped me throughout my life. 

After my marriage Diwali came very naturally to me as I had seen it through my childhood and whilst we did all our pujas at home we also had the enjoyment of our Diwali card parties to look forward to. There was a time when we used to have card parties ten to twelve days in a row on the run up to the main Diwali day. There was a dear friend of ours, Rama Sood, who used to give out the dates for when you could have your party and kept a track of the dates so that no parties clashed. Our party was always fixed for dhanteras and this tradition lasted for about 15 years. We were living in Ballygunge at the time and our  Alipore house was empty so we would remove all the furniture from the downstairs rooms and set up about 10 card tables. The food and drinks would all be served outside in the garden and snacks would be circulated inside for as long as people were playing. Our parties would usually carry on till the wee hours of the morning and I remember there was always one table which played for very high stakes so they were extremely serious and you had to like tip toe around them. One year all the other guests finally departed but this group showed no signs of leaving. In fact they requested us to go to bed ( we used to sleep upstairs that night) so we left 2 waiters, food and drinks for them and went up to bed. In the morning when I woke up I could still hear them playing downstairs…..they had pulled an all nighter!!!! And the best part is that we all had another party to attend that day too!!! I used to love the whole Diwali vibe…getting dressed up in our traditional saris, wearing different jewellery every night and meeting up with all our friends. I remember that some days we didn’t get home till 4-5am and I would have to be up and ready  by 7 am as normal. Vinay also always managed to go to the office maybe just an hour later than usual. I remember one year we came home at the same time Vinay’s tauji was leaving for his morning walk…. We just hid in the car till he left and then quietly crept up to our floor!!!!

We used to play cards for a couple of hours and then just sit and talk and laugh….how much we all laughed…it was as though we had no cares in the world…other than where our next game of cards was. However your body can only take so much and nowadays I’m happy to be in bed by 10pm Diwali or no Diwali.

Despite this hectic social life I still had to carry on with all my household duties and family commitments but nothing used to faze me. I still went and bought all new saris, clothes for the children, sheets,towels, candles and diyas. Vinay always bought cartons and cartons of fireworks for all the children in the house supposedly for all three days..Dhanteras, Chotti Diwali and Badi Diwali but these would finish on the first day and he would have to go again to restock!!! When I think about it now we were one of the main culprits of both smoke and air pollution and I am happy that at least now my grandchildren are much more aware of this and happily agree to skip this mindless tradition. 

In Marwari households food takes pride of place during any festivities so heaps of food would be made and distributed between friends and  family. I have now switched to sending dry fruits to all my daughters as this is one item you can eat all the year round. Me bring me am too super organised and have everything ready and then am itching to send it but have to hold myself back as ideally this should be sent as close to Diwali as possible but I, of course, want to tick it off my list!!! Job done ✔️ We would also distribute gifts between friends and it was always quite a task trying to think of something new and innovative every year. This tradition has also thankfully stopped by mutual understanding and instead of wasting money on playing pass the parcel with gifts and mithais we all donate some money to any charity of our choice in lieu of this. 

The day after Diwali was when we had to go and visit all our relatives and lots of other families ( many of whom I only saw once a year ie the day after Diwali!) but this was a duty of the daughters in law so who were we to complain. The funny thing is that my father in law went to visit the male counterparts because he always felt sorry for his sons as they were tired ( from sleepless nights playing cards) but I guess we daughters in law were considered ‘superwomen’ so we could do both!!! Anyway there was no point in complaining so we would happily go to about 10 houses which spread all over Calcutta and would come back absolutely exhausted more from making polite conversation than anything else. Such is life!!!

There were a few years when both Vivek and Rashi were away at university in England and there used to be a real void in my heart during any of these festivals. I feel the whole joy of Diwali is having your family around to celebrate together so now thankfully I have my grandchildren here also. The only difference is that Vinay and I are the ones staying at home and the kids are out partying!! We have had our time and now it is the time for them to party. 

I am happy as long as we all do our puja together and sit and enjoy our traditional Diwali dinner. 

Jai Lakshmi Mata 🙏🙏