A Whole Lotta Light!

I scoured the bedroom cabinet to rescue a large cardboard box set aside for this time of the year. As I placed the box on the floor, my cat, Nemo, inquisitively came around to inspect the invaluable contents of the box. She was greeted by intertwined coils of rice lights, unassumingly resting in the box. As the mister took out the bunch and connected them to the nearest electrical port to check which ones worked, the wires sprung to life, twinkling in red, blue, yellow, pink and green. Nemo immediately engaged in an imaginary conversation with the lights warning them to behave, lest they wished to be scratched. But soon enough, as the mister hung them out over the window, Nemo had gotten friendly with them, assured that their territories were established as mutually exclusive. Nemo settled herself near the windowsill, as the strings of light dimmed and shone alternately rendering a sparkling outfit to the grills of our window.  

  

Lights and Diwali are considered synonymous to one another, for as far as I can remember. As a little girl, however, I would always refer to Diwali as the festival of darkness because back in my hometown Kolkata, it is celebrated in tandem with Ma Kali or the Dark Mother. Evidently annoyed, my father would often correct me: 

“Festival of darkness na re baba, festival of lights, lights!” 

But my mother rarely protested to this odd definition of mine. She would promptly reply to Baba saying: 

“For light to be seen, there must be darkness.” 

She was right of course. Every year, in the aftermath of Durga Pujo, a strange melancholy would set in. The air would still be heavy with the smell of festivities, but somehow we were asked to get back to routine. My mother had a standard expression for this:

 “Pujo shesh. Ebar porte bosho.”
(Pujo is over. Time to get back to your books.)

I detested the feeling. Just then, Kali Pujo would announce its grand entry with lights and firecrackers, instantly driving the gloom away. Once again we were allowed to set aside our books for a few days and immerse ourselves in the merriments. The weather would change from summery to slightly wintery, with a pleasant breeze encasing the town. Festivities would once again grip the alleys of my home as preparations for the double jollity of Diwali and Kali Pujo made its way. All the neighbourhood grocery stores would be transformed into dazzling counters with festival goodies. Large glass jars filled with rice, pulses and biscuits, which would otherwise line the front rows of the stores, would be replaced by boxes of a variety of firecrackers – phuljhuri, toobri, chorki, rong moshal and the likes. Every day on my way back from school, I would excitedly bargain with Baba on how many firecrackers to buy. He would sternly reply saying:

“Only 500 rupees worth of crackers this time. Not a penny more.”

But when the time came, he would splurge on the crackers himself, spoilt for choice as to which ones to pick.

“Eh ma, eta nibi na?”, he would say.
(You won’t try this one?)

I would carefully select the boxes adorned with pictures of popular actresses of that era – Sridevi, Divya Bharati, Juhi Chawla and Karishma Kapoor. It was as if they were there with me in my little Diwali party. In those days tea candles had not hit the markets yet. Hence, we would buy the plain white candles from the store and light them up, patiently dotting our balcony grills and windowsills with flickers of fire. My sister and I would compete with one another on how many candles we had managed to light in each room. Once that battle was settled, the rest of the evening was betrothed in bursting firecrackers on the terrace of our building. 

I specifically remember this one year, when Baba had outdone himself with the Diwali loot. We came home with four large bags filled with firecrackers of my dreams – rong moshal of myriad colours, toobris as large as juicy oranges, chorkis with the ability to spin through miles, and what not. But that very evening, Baba experienced a sudden rush of body temperature. I watched him from behind the bedroom curtains, as he lay down on the bed and covered himself in blankets, shivering in cold. Ma said he had something called ‘malaria’. She encouraged me and my sister nonetheless to accompany the building kids to the terrace for bursting the crackers we had bought. On any other year, I would have insisted to burst off all the crackers on the same evening. But that year, I set aside some for bursting the next day, just like Baba would have wanted, hoping he would be able to join us to watch some of the magnificent fireworks he had bought with so much heart. It took him a week to recover, but when he did, we burst some of the leftover crackers I had managed to save.

The day after Diwali was reserved for visiting my father’s friends, Anutosh Kaku and Bela Pishi, at their ancestral Kali Pujo. They would host a small gathering of family and friends, coming together for lunch and adda. The Kali idol at their place used to be a beautiful midnight blue instead of the regular black found in most pujos. It would be adorned with a heap of garlands, particularly ones weaved of blood red hibiscus flowers, and a massive spread of fruits and sweets would be set around it in concentric circles. The coconut and jaggery laddoos from the spread were my favourite - I would constantly ask for multiple helpings of the same. The main attraction of the event, however, was not the idol – it was the chicken curry which Bela Pishi prepared for lunch. I can still feel the perfectly balanced spicy zing and tang of the curry in my mouth every time I think about it. If ever, the chicken curry made at home turned out to be extremely delicious, my sister and I would say:

“Ekdom Anutosh Kaku-r barir moton”
(Tastes just like the one at Anutosh Kaku’s place).  

Hence, we never skipped the ritual of attending the Kali Pujo at their place; such was the magnetic pull of Bela Pishi’s chicken curry. Till this day, I do not know which magic ingredient made the curry taste that delectable. Perhaps there was a secret recipe; or perhaps it was the homely feeling and togetherness of pujo at Kaku’s place which added to the taste of the curry and made it priceless to us.

As I grew up and moved to a different city, the Kali Pujo of my childhood draped itself in a new and extravagant avatar. Colourful rangolis made its way to my doorstep and the Diwali platter at home added on the likes of matthris, chaklis and motichoor ke laddoos. While these additions were made to the celebrations, we consciously subtracted the noisy fireworks from the list, in an effort to make Diwali less scary for our little Nemo. The outside noise of crackers invariably sends her scurrying under the sofa every year.

This year too, we put on our festive best and mentally prepared ourselves to let Nemo be in her safe corner as evening descended. What pleasantly surprised us was the substantially less noise levels outside. Nemo did not have to hide one bit and could spend the entire evening with us, watching the lights, eating a hearty meal of tuna and listening to music. It made me think that even in the worst of times such as a year amidst a pandemic, life presents us with golden moments that are worth cherishing. As it turns out, Nemo did come out of the darkness underneath the sofa to truly join in the celebrations.

Festival of lights it is then. A whole lotta light!