Rain Splashed Diwali -----

This is how the sky appeared on the eve of Diwali. Unbelievable? At least for me it was a bit difficult to believe that it could pour so hard during Diwali …. It truly was a novel experience.

The festival of lights is celebrated at home every year. There would be visits to relatives and friends, but basically we would be stationed in our home-town. This year we were in another city – Bengaluru, during the festivities.

Right from the day we reached the city, the skies were perpetually clouded and gloomy. Everyone was hopeful that it would clear up by the festival time, but instead, the rains kept increasing from Dhan Teras right through Diwali.

An occasional shower during Deepavali is not absolutely unheard of, but such incessant rain? It was more like the month of July than November.

Along with the heavy rains came all its paraphernalia, too – disrupted electricity supply, mud and slush, pot-holes filled with rain water, traffic jams ……everything in minutest details.

The local newspapers ran pictures of bumper to bumper rows of cars, with all their tail-lights uniformly blazing red, on the jammed roads. It was as if the cars were rejoicing the festival of lights with only the tail-lights glowing brightly in the dark of the night.

On the Lakshmi Pooja day, the rains started receding by late afternoon – it did return the next day, but at the time of Pooja it was all clear and immediately everybody came out to celebrate and burn crackers. Within minutes the darkening skies sparkled with splendid fireworks.

Some locals said that rains during Diwali time are a usual thing in Bengaluru, while others felt that it was because of the sudden atmospheric changes. Whatever may be the reason, it was a different experience and an enjoyable one.

Another – and the true reason for the merriment was ….after almost a decade the family was enjoying the festival together.

Long time back, it was an era of joint family, then came the nuclear families. And now is the time of ‘dispersed families’. Either for education or job or for some such factor, nowadays the members of most of the families are spread over in different corners of country/world. It is not always possible to spend time together or celebrate occasions together due to some reason or the other. So, it is ‘Sone pe suhaga’ when the family is together and the occasion is the grand festival of the year.