Season's Greetings

Diwali is officially over…. I am not sure how I feel about it yet…. I didn’t feel like it was diwali while it was here cos essentially K requested for a “no celebrations please” I don’t know why… but I agreed…. So we didn’t light lamps (like I had planned), or have a party (like I had hoped), we just had some good food (isnt that the whole point of festivals anyways?) and watched three awesome movies back to back….cut ourselves away from everyone and everything, for a brief while we watched the fireworks across the cityscape…..but other than that, I think we had the quietest diwali ever…..

I was just interrupted by this weird call….from Airtel broadband, peddling some games on demand…. When I politely said I was not interested…the polite guy asked if he could ask me a question…. I answered yes….he asked me if I was married…to which I said yes….then he asks if I have kids….i say no….then he pauses…. And says….oh…. not yet….. oh ok maa’m…..  if he wasn’t so polite…I’d have bitten his head off…. But I still think this was a weird question to be asked by the provider of an internet service…. I’d rather they check some other way if there are kids in the household!! Weird!!

The global financial situation, i was told by the newspapers, has had its impact on the festivities this year.....from the sounds of crackers, i think it was a lot less than last year....but the newspapers had pages and pages of supplements offering huge discounts on everything from clothes to groceries to furniture and appliances.... i have been abstaining from buying anything since my resolution  to refuse, reduce, recycle and reuse....... anything except groceries that is.... so its been a little over a year now.... and i havent bought anything!! no matter what the temptation...clothes, shoes, home decor stuff, crockery..... nothing.... and i am pretty proud of that!!

Anyways, back to diwali…. apart from the fact that i made chocolates on order in the run up to the festival, we didnt do much.....I donated the rangoli colours I had to some women from our building who didn’t have any and were making a giant community rangoli…. I ended up doing it with them…and it was quite different from my usual just saying hello and walking off!! I think they were more surprised than I was that I stayed and partook of this community thingie!! I also donated a huge box of crackers that I was hoping we’d burst….. they were leftovers from last year…man!! We got soooo many last year…. I gave away the whole box, to my building’s handyman’s kids….i was not very happy that K made me do this….but was glad in the end…..

So that was diwali….pretty nondescript….. but on the brighter side…. I feel very rested…

I hope everyone had a good time…those who planned large scale bashes and those who like us wanted low key ones…. and those who don’t celebrate…. I hope you enjoyed the holidays….