With tomorrow being the much-awaited Indian Festival of Light, Diwali (a.k.a. Deepawali), I expected the entire city to be lit like a bride on her wedding day, garlanded with flickering fairy lights, earthen lamps, and strings of gaudy papiermache lamps hanging from doorways. I also expected people driving up in droves to shopping malls, carrying several colorful, crunchy-sounding shopping bags, filled to the brims with gifts, consumer goods, clothes and firecrackers.
Instead I encountered endless traffic snarls – where are all these people driving to anyway? On a Saturday afternoon too, no less, there seemed little respite for the choking roads, with people barely helping, thanks to flaring tempers and the occasional rude comments they hurled deftly at one another, etiquette and soft-spokenness be darned! Add to that, a winter on the verge of spreading its chill, and you had to also contend with shivering bikers who rode their bikes fast, albeit a little wobbly on the tyres.
While storekeepers did grumble about the paucity of shoppers, it would be wrong to say that all shopping malls wore a desolate look. People did trickle in - however, the recent economic slump had made the to-be-distributed gifts less extravagant than last year’s.
So out went the Swarovski-studded idols, making way for more pocket-friendly deities, exotic champagnes and Merlot bottles fizzled out in favour of their domestic partners, sparkling diamonds and platinum were left unpurchased with people preferring their more ‘humble’ gold and silver counterparts…
Even companies that had showered generous gifts on their employees last year, made do with sensible one kg sweetboxes.
Children, flanked by their parents, pointed at the firecrackers on bright display in glittering windows and at roadside stalls, which seemed less than the bountiful display evident in 2007. Because of the steep prices the firecrackers commanded, the visibly-disappointed children had to contend with 2-3 boxes as compared to the indulgent 8-10 packs they had burst last year.
Thankfully though, this year, because of more stringent rules, the elderly, the ill, children, pets and other animals might sleep a bit more peacefully as compared to the fitful sleep they kept dozing in and out of, last year.
With ears that don’t quite hurt as much.
And maybe you will be able to see the car threading its way through the neighbourhood gate this year. Which is more than what you could squint at, last year, through the thick smoke that enveloped the street outside your home.
And maybe your Grandpa’s asthmatic cough this year might not get aggravated...making you too breathe easy...
Wish you all a warm, sparkling, prosperous, and safe Diwali!
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