It’s that magical time of year again but this year, Diwali means something completely different. As someone who has grown up in small living rooms overcrowded with too many family members, festivals have always been loud, dramatic, chaotic and sometimes even scandalous. The hallway used to be blocked by so many lehengas that it was impossible to move without getting scolded for stepping on someone’s outfit. Daughter-in-laws would have to bear the responsibility of feeding a room full of grown men even though they were fully capable by themselves, children would somehow find room to loudly run around and I would stand in a corner with my siblings, and the two cousins I speak to, as I judge my entire family. There would always be this undeniable festive feeling as we celebrate together even if all everyone did was complain all night. I keep thinking back to that time and I think I may have taken that noise for granted.
There are a multitude of reasons to love Diwali- the way the whole city lights up, the sparkles from firecrackers bursting in the pitch black sky, some random speaker playing a mix of all the item songs bollywood has ever made and so on. My favourite childhood memory on Diwali though, was my cousin driving us late at night to this soda shop where we’d find other decked-up families having paan, kulfi and soda shinkanji (somehow all at once). I think this happened a total of 3 times because now everyone’s too old for late night drives or have work the next morning or are in a different city. Nevertheless, it’s a hazy memory that still fills me with so much warmth that every time I listen to ‘Dil Nu’ or ‘Wakhra Swag’, all I think about is bhaiya trying to be cool as the dj in front of the soda shop. I remember just how seriously I would research for the best rangoli design and make a list to pitch them to my mom for her to decide what I would paint in the house. It would take me a week to paint the rangoli on the floor but it was worth it because it took mom a month to clean it up!
This year, Diwali is a bit more quiet. Instead of multi-coloured fairy lights all over that burn my eyes, there are those decorations that Kit Kat put up and the beautiful rangoli they had in the mess. The campus seems so serene and calm – there are no lines in the mess, no stress-induced frown lines on the bhaiyas at Fuel Zone but most of all, there is no one who will be bothered by my carelessly off-beat humming of Mohit Chauhan’s tracks in public. My friends and I decided to get dressed in our finest kurtas even if all we were going to do was lay in bed and watch a movie, but the special stall that they set up in the mess made us feel dressed for the occasion. We roamed about campus with no care in the world because during Diwali at Ashoka, the utter lack of people around you makes you feel like you have a home spreading over 25 acres.
Despite having experienced my fair share of Diwali traditions, it was at 3 a.m. in the morning that my friend tried to teach me how to play cards in RH3 commons so we could spend the night enjoying the way Diwali ‘should be enjoyed’. Although I can now admit that I’m terrible at cards, there is nothing more exciting than sitting with a group of friends and wondering whose side I should take as they bicker about someone cheating in teen patti because I folded right at the beginning. Seeing students take it upon themselves to have a mini celebration outside the mess and being so generous as to distributing motichoor ke ladoo to whoever attended is what Diwali is about this year. This year, Diwali isn’t half-bad, it’s just different.