Celebrating Deepavali - Reasons, Traditions & Memoirs

Padma,
Thanks for the wishes and wishing you and your family the same..

sriniketan

 

Deepavali-this word itself brings such warm and wonderful memories for me. I can honestly say that my childhood deepavali was the best. All my family members, Periappas, periammas, athai, aithimber, all their kids, my dad, mom, brothers and then ME. My athai being the eldest would apply the nalangu for all of us and then we will be asked to burn some crackers before our bath. Boy! applying that siyakkai kuliyal was the dread of my life. I used to have so much hair and washing it used to be a chore for my mom. Then fighting with my middle brother for the most amount of crackers and then bursting all day. The food used to be the high light. Food, food and much more food. We used to burst from the seams. No TV programmes like today. I get tears in my eyes just thinking about all those bygone deepavali's. Nowadays, being in US, husband in the office, kids in school and who is there to enjoy the food and no bursting of crackers too, only kambi mathappu. My kids don't understand any of the excitement in my voice while I describe the excitement in India.

 

Can`t forget the deepavali I celebrated in my childhood. One particular diwali I got a violet silk skirt with white colour blouse decked with gold lace. My sis stitched it and embroidered flowers in the centre. Lace was not easily available in Trichy those days and she had to hunt everywhere to get it. So it is still special for me. Every year our custom was to make vengaya sambar the previous night especially if there is a thalai diwali. We used to burst a lot of crackers sharing with the neighbourhood kids. The festivity lasted for nearly 5 days. Kids of today stay mostly indoors with computers and TVs making them busy. Since we got new dresses only for special occasions we used to await them. Can`t say for sure if the kids of today still feel the same. Oh those days!