Happy Diwali!

For those of you who don’t know what Diwali is, it’s the Indian New Year, celebrated by, well, a pretty large chunk of the world. Yes, we observe a different new year, because the Hindu and many other South Asian religions follow a lunisolar (don’t ask, I don’t entirely get it myself) calendar rather than the Western-favorite Gregorian calendar.

r/showerthoughts: Is this lunisolar calendar the reason why we Indians are always late??? Because we’re operating on an entirely different construct of time, ingrained in us over centuries and generations, and not just being inconsiderate?

Diwali is one of the brightest spots in the Indian calendar, literally and figuratively. Among many of the beliefs, it is the day Lord Ram finally returned home to Ayodhya, after 14 years spent in exile (as retold in the Hindu epic Ramayana). Modern-day reality TV has nothing on ancient Indian royals. It marks the triumph of good over evil, light over darkness. It’s also not just one day, but rather a series of celebrations. Because, as per usual, we South Asians don’t like to cram everything into one Western-constructed day (I’m going to stop being annoying about this soon enough).

Diwali also marks the end—for me, at least—of a packed season of major Indian festivals, which starts around August with Rakshabandhan, and sometimes overlaps with what I consider “Western holiday season”, if Diwali falls after Halloween. I even wrote an entire op-ed about how my “holiday” season was actually extended because we celebrated two cultures for my college newspaper. Diwali is also the last official chance in the Gregorian year to wear pretty, traditional clothes, throw lots of parties, burst firecrackers, gamble (!), light diyas and lanterns and keep the lights on in every room even when we’re not in them, and eat lots of amazing food.

Which is the point of this post: To share how we celebrated the end of another Indian year, and the beginning of a new one—one that’s hopefully brighter and better. This Diwali was a far cry from what I’ve celebrated in the past, but it was lovely, nonetheless.

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With our Christmas tree up 3 weeks early because it’s 2020 and everything is acceptable, we had candles galore in place of the traditional clay diyas. I wore a sari for the first time as an adult. We made fancy Indian-inspired cocktails (my first boozy Diwali, which is totally acceptable in some parts of the country). We grooved to Bollywood music, old and new.

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And, we made food my family traditionally makes for major festivals:

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Aloo ki sabzi (a potato gravy), kadhu (pumpkin, or, in this case, kabocha squash), boondi ka raita (a watered down and masala-fied yogurt mixed with crunchy chickpea flour balls), and patta gobhi (cabbage, in place of the cauliflower we were actually supposed to have but forgot because it’s the Great Global Upheaval and we forget things like this). All eaten with puris: poofy fried bread made with atta (the multi-grain flour most everyday Indian breads are made from). It was my first time mallo-ing (Hinglish for kneading), making, and frying puris. And they poofed! Check that off the sanskari bahu checklist, why don’t you?

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Oh, and for dessert? My incredibly talented sister whipped out some pretty damned tasty, sweet shop-grade kalakand (milk cake).

Enjoy the images, and drool over them, and wish you knew me so that you could get in on the leftovers we’ve got.

Wishing you a prosperous, happy, Indian (now I’m done) new year!