This was Maya’s first Deepavali (Diwali). Neither Shanthala nor I are upto celebrating most festivals much. But this was our favorite festival in India and the only one that we visibly celebrated after we moved to the US. Every year, for a couple of days, Shanthala puts out a string of small lamps outside the door to mark the festival, cooks sumptuous festival meals and wishes a few friends and family. This year, she finally purchased the holiday lights that many of our neighbors string during Christmas and strung them outside our house. We had talked about using holiday lights several times these past years, but never really got around to buying them and installing them.

In the years past, especially when we were growing up together in Davangere, Shanthala and her folks would come to our house on one of the days and we’d all enjoy ourselves bursting firecrackers. We’d end the evening by usually making a huge bonfire with the remnants of the firecrackers. My father always indulged me in the purchase of firecrackers of all sorts, sometimes spending upwards of Rs. 100, a huge amount in those days. So, I always had a lot of firecrackers to burst, sometimes a few days after Deepavali was over. I tended to be popular at those times.

When we returned to India for a couple of years after living in the US, I wondered if Kitty would be scared with all the noise from the firecrackers. But, I seem to remember that he was unfazed. We also lived in a place where there weren’t too many kids and so it was less of an issue anyway.



There is a small Hindu temple near where we live. Every year during Deepavali, there is a mela with many eateries, stalls selling stuff and a  musical event, with some troupe performing Hindi film songs. Shanthala and I had gone there last year for the first time, more out of curiosity than anything else. This year, Shanthala wanted to go to the temple and seek God’s blessings for Maya. Maya slept through the visit, having fallen asleep in the car, on the way to the temple.

I didn’t know that Deepavali had a different significance for different religions. And that even within the same religion, it symbolized different things for different communities. For Sikhs, it is a celebration of freedom as it marked the freeing of one of their patron saints from prison. For Jains, it is the day that Mahavira, the last of Jain Tirthankaras attained nirvana. For the Hindu financial community, it is the most auspicious day to start the financial year as the time marks the birth of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. For other Hindus, it marks a return of goodwill after an absence, as this is the time that the god Rama returned after 14 years in exile. It is the return of light after a period of darkness. Kitty was a fond memory this time, last year. Now, Maya is with us. For me, it is a time to mark the return of life, to celebrate the cycle of life.