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Sunday, October 19, 2014

Gharwali Diwali

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ7lMDWJOXA



Seeing the lovely video on gharwalidiwali from Pepsi / Kurkure,
https://www.gharwalidiwali.com/ brought back many sweet memories of Diwali.

And aside, I loved the add. Brought et ears to my eyes.

Diwali is precious to me for many reasons. Honestly while I always loved the entire ceremony of Diwali, it became much more precious festival to me because my children were born on a Diwali morning, amidst the crack and pop of various crackers as Chennai celebrated Diwali on the exact moment when my kids came screaming and perplexed, into this world.

My oldest memory of Diwali is that my mom would make a model of a home, typically the one where we lived, out of a cardboard box.
She would wallpaper it with white sheets and paint the various structures like doors, balconies, windows. She even put transparent polythene for window glass and tiny curtains for the same. Even detailing of door knows was done using chocolate foil. Totally best out of waste.

She even made a garage with corrugated roofing using biscuit tin sheet.

She and Dad would then put a bulb inside and connect the same to a plug point and lo and behold,


our home had electricity.


We children would decorate the same with our dolls, cars, make mini garden, place a flower pot for giving a tree effect and make mini scenes using our toys.

We would do Pooja in the gharaunda as we call it and then ought the lamps, candles and fairy lights all over the house.

Then there would be the goodies that were made and we compulsorily had yam curry and poori for dinner.


Diwali was a time when our extended family would meet up and therefore there was a lot of merry making in general.


In fact today, I don't leave my home for Diwali as I do like to deck up the home, light a lot of lights, variety of lamps, and decorate using flowers and floating lamps in the urli. I totally enjoy the entire ceremony that entails Diwali and of course I have the believe that this day brings prosperity and is therefore symbolic that the family stays together. And considering that my children's birthday fall around Diwali, I often have my parents here with me.




I have bought a little house made of wood from Kolkata and that is my gharaunda that I use for the puja. The children decorate their toys and cars and make a merry scene around it.

We also distribute sweets to some neighbours and light crackers together in the complex. At least we are not alone during Diwali.

I am not so fond of crackers and neither are my children too brave about lighting them. I sincerely hope they will one day think of making their Diwali more meaningful instead if spending money on crackers which do nothing for the environment.
However I do not want to impose that on them and I wait for them to think about the same and become ambassadors of green Diwali and focus more on fun and togetherness and of course lots of eating, especially the kaju barfi that they love immensely.

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