The Festival Of Lights

Seema stood admiring the diyas lined up on the ledges. It took her more than half an hour to line them up in both the balconies. She knew she had a job cut out for her of lighting them up again and again, as the wind blew into the balcony. But she didn't mind it, as she enjoyed doing it. Deepavali was her most favorite festival.

She sat down in the chair from where she could see the children were bursting firecrackers from across the street below. She loved to watch the flower pot crackers, as they burst into a fountain of a starry shower of white and orange fire from a small flare in the beginning, before dying down all of a sudden. Her next favorite ones were those ground spinner crackers. As they spun around and bounced off the ground with to the force of fire, they delighted her to no end.

Her husband Alok took no part in her enjoyment criticizing her for her feeling happy at a thing that caused so much pollution. She did agree with her husband on that count and tried to stay away from actively taking part in the revelry, but nothing prevented her from deriving this passive delight by watching the children enjoying themselves during Deepavali.

In fact, it took her back to her own childhood days when she reveled in bursting crackers of all sorts; even those loud noise-making ones she had come to abhor in her adulthood. Her father used to take immense pride in being the head of the family of a household that had the maximum spoils of firecrackers in front of the house the day after Deepavali. Even way back in the early seventies, he used to spend thousands on purchasing firecrackers, though he wouldn't light a single one of those.

A whooshing sound brought her out of her reverie diverting her attention to a rocket that went zooming into the sky and burst into starlets of multiple colors. As she continued to stare into the sky, the bursting continued in little spurts.

Oh, she loved these modern ones which were missing during her childhood. She always marveled at the creativity behind making the rocket burst into different colors at delayed intervals. She never tired of seeing the sky lit with red, pink, orange, green, yellow-colored sparks in rapid succession.

That's when she heard her doorbell ring. As she walked into the hall wondering who it could be, Alok had already opened the door. It was her maid Anjali. Dressed in a new Sari with matching accessories, Anjali was a sight to behold.

"Happy Deepavali Amma," Anjali said fidgeting with her bag to remove something from inside.

"Happy Deepavali Anjali. You seem to be really in the festive mood" Seema said smiling at Anjali.

"My Amma drove me out of the house asking me to give you these." She said handing over a small packet.

"What is this Anjali?" a surprised Seema asked.

"We made "holige" (sweet flatbread) at home on our new gas stove today" a beaming Anjali replied.

"Oh! So you got it going today" a delighted Seema exclaimed.

"Yes. Amma. I wanted to light the stove on an auspicious day. What better day for that than Deepavali?"

"Finally, your mother is rid of cooking on wood or coal."

"Severely asthmatic that she is, the smoke almost killed her lungs over the years Amma. I cannot tell you how happy she is today. She had been after me since morning to reach these "holige" to you, which she made getting up early in the morning." Anjali blabbered on.

Anjali had wanted to buy the gas stove as a gift for her mother on Deepavali. Though she was capable of buying one long ago, one thing always held her back. The very prospect of having to open a bank account pushed Anjali to the brink of fear, she confessed to Seema one day.

When Seema probed further, she got to understand that Anjali's shame over her illiteracy made her avoid anything to do with Banks. Seema slowly coaxed her into polishing her signature by making her practice it multiple times in her presence. Seema's eyes almost teared up when she realized, for Anjali, the alphabets of her name were mere shapes.

One day Anjali mustered enough courage to step into the nearby branch of a Bank and with the help of Seema, she managed to open an account in her name. As she put her signature on the dotted line, Anjali looked at Seema for approval, beaming with pride as though she had just conquered Mount Everest. Well, she might as well have, given the fact that hardly anyone was literate in her family. Armed with a passbook, she was enthused enough to get the gas connection all by herself. Finally, on the day of Deepavali, Anjali brought in the much desired blue light of the gas burner into their lives.

As she looked at Anjali's face illuminated with so much happiness, Seema's heart filled with pride. But her happiness was tinged with sadness as she thought "If only you could try and illuminate your life with learning to read and write Anjali!"

When she tried to push Anjali to learn alphabets, Seema met with failure. Anjali's deep-rooted low self-esteem seemed to come in the way. As of now, it appeared as though the signature is as good as it got.

"Maybe one thing at a time," Seema told herself as she decided to enjoy the present moment along with Anjali. 

This true story is being submitted wishing the readers a Very Happy Deepavali!