In India, you can hear Deepavali (the most popular Hindu festival) coming a week before its arrival. It starts with nightly bursting of firecrackers making it nearly impossible to sleep. In all hours of darkness you will hear cracking and see the lights of people celebrating. The regularly crowded markets will be even more crowded with shoppers looking for the best deal on new clothes for each member of the family.
I had the privilege of experiencing Deepavali in India back in 2003. Celebrating it here doesn't even compare, but with Amma in town we give it our best shot. This is the second time she has been with us for Deepavali and this time was even more grand than the first. We spent most of the week making snacks and sweets. In India, these would be traditionally shared with neighbors and other guests that visit on the holiday. Here, we are just enjoying them all to ourselves... but we did send a small batch to Bartee's sister in Atlanta. Sorry Anna, if you had a postal address we would have sent some to you in Kuwait as well. :) Also, if we had been in India we would have enjoyed a large lunch with friends and family. Here we just cooked a grand lunch and enjoyed it ourselves. We enjoyed so much that it's very possible we will be skipping dinner! Amma brought new clothes for us from India and although the kid's outfits were a little big for them, Sanjay wore his anyway. He's practically swimming in it. In a few years, it'll fit him perfectly. Priya refused to wear the big one and instead chose something in her closet that we brought home the last time we visited India. If you drive by our house and know a little bit about the festival, you would recognize all the kolum drawings that Amma made in our driveway and on the walkway. In India, they would be full of color, very intricate and much larger. However, we are perfectly happy with how Amma's turned out. She drew them with rice flour soaked in water and as long as we can keep the rain away we will be enjoying these for days to come. Thanks Amma for reminding us again how much fun it is to celebrate Deepavali.
For all the pictures of our festivities, see the pictures on Flickr.
