Diwali - Festivals of Light
When is Diwali in 2006? Diwali is on 21st October in 2006.
Diwali is the festival of lights. Diwali is one of the most important festivals of India. Diwali is also traditionally the time when the businessmen begin their new accounts. There are other things that mark the occasion. During Diwali, children and adults burn crackers. The festival falls on Amavasya-the final day of the lunar cycle during which the moon is on the wane. With the sky pitch dark in color, the crackers offer a fantastic contrast and they light up the sky. On Diwali day, shopkeepers perform the traditional worship of Goddess Lakshmi, who showers fortunes on people and invite all near and dear to attend the occasion.
Diwali is the time when you find people firing crackers away, which is something very obvious. There are other things that are not so obvious. Diwali is also the time when people distribute sweets. Shopkeepers distribute sweets among their patrons and employees and there usually will be such a huge demand for sweets at that time that it takes about half an hour for anyone to buy anything from a sweet shop. People also prepare various kinds of sweets at home during Diwali and visitors are literally pampered with sweets from whichever house they visit. You cannot leave a household without accepting the sweets they offer lest they should think you are offending them.
Among the various kinds of crackers, there are varieties for children and also for adults. For children you have toy guns, dot caps, roll caps, snakes in the form of round tablets that flow up like a snake when lighted and strings and pencils. For the grown ups, you have different kinds of bombs like the hydrogen bombs and atom bombs. Lakshmi bombs and double sound bombs in particular are in great demand. They have become icons for two generations. There are other things like the rockets, ‘ladis’ (a string of bombs tied up numbering anywhere between 30 and 10000), flowerpots, and the equivalents of the Catherine’s Wheel in the Western world- Zameen chakras and others. The burning of crackers usually begins after it gets dark on Diwali day and goes on till midnight. All the places reverberate wit the sound of burning crackers.
During Diwali people prepare different kinds of sweets. They include Kalakand, Mysorepak, Payasam, Badusha, Gulabjamun, Rasgulla, and many others with different flavors and levels of sweetness. It is an occasion when you have to ‘sweeten the mouths of people’ by a generous serving of different varieties of mouthwatering sweets. Milk and sugar are the major constituents of most of the sweets prepared at this time. The extent their sweetness depends also on individual tastes. Everybody prepares sweets according to their economic status. Companies spend a lot of money on the distribution of sweets during Diwali. This is the annual occasion to 'thank you' to patrons and employees.
During Diwali people wear new clothes. For children this is a very happy occasion, as they know that they are going to gets new clothes. In fact, a month in advance of the festival, they start their enquiry about the date as it also means new clothes for them apart form the excitement of burning crackers. People have their own agenda. The very young ones are initiated into the adventurous world of toy pistols and roll caps. Wearing new clothes and burning crackers is the traditional way of celebrating Diwali. Nothing less is acceptable.
Diwali is the festival of lights. For a fifteen-day period starting Diwali day, people light up their houses with lights of many hues. Wicks made of raw cotton are dipped in oil and they are placed in a small earthen receptacle with oil and lighted in the evening till the day is over. This is the traditional way and this wards off darkness from all corners. The modern trend is that those who can afford light up their houses with electric lights do so. Legend has it that Lord Krishna and his wife Satyabhama returned from the battlefield victoriously after getting rid of Mahishasura who brought untold difficulties on the people of the world and people celebrated the victory by burning crackers and it is continued to commemorate the occasion.
Diwali brings a lot of memories to everyone. As this is a special occasion and is also associated with burning crackers, it leaves strong impressions. The childhood adventures with crackers, the gradual movement to more and more powerful crackers and bombs in particular are all instances that remain in memory forever. The expectations that the festival brings and spending sleepless nights in anticipation of the grand day when one gets the chance to do what one has been dreaming of and the thrill of actually doing all that-burning crackers. The competition with friends and neighbors in burning crackers where one-upmanship is the order of the day are all memories cherished long after they are past.