Deepavali's Ganga Snanam

I am sitting far away in Phoenix and looking back into the past in Bangalore where I spent most of my family life. We would have bought new clothes for everybody. We usually buy the fireworks on a Chit Scheme. We start paying into a chit fund and at the end of the year, we get some fireworks and a gift too. It works out more economical. I usually make the diwali sweets the previous day otherwise its hard to hide the diwali goodies from the prying eyes of the kids. They are smart kids. Much smarter than we think they are. The pokodams can vanish much faster than P.C.Sarkar's magic act of the vanishing car. And sweets you should see will disappear in no time. All these stuff can vanish fast but when it comes to eating food it will not happen. It will sit there glaring at you. If I complain to the father he would say aren't you making all these to eat? What does it matter whether you eat it today or tomorrow?


So I start making after every family had been busy making for the past one week . They are all done with and are all ready for the festival. I would start making and would go late into the night preparing. Occasionally hearing yellings as to why do I disturb everyone's sleep ? I make sure I dont make much noise . He says the smell of making bakshanams at night disturbs him. The smell of mysore pak is too piercing.
Then the mixture making. The tantan sound of the boondi making is very disturbing too. He is all the more stressed because I would have dirtied the place and he would have to clean all that.


It's early morning and we can hear the sounds of the crackers being burst. Normally even if you burst bombs near their ears its not going to have any effect. But today their ears are all open to hear the faint sound of crackers some four streets away.
We start the day having oil bath traditionally known as "Ganga Snanam". There was one family in our building who really used ganga water in their bath that day. We didnt. The children take a hurried bath and get into new clothes and burst crackers.


Its tension for the mothers. They are worried that the children burst the crackers safely. Usually we make sure we get cotton clothes for Diwali. They are worried about their safety. We are happy only when the patakis get over. At last they heave a sigh of relief . The kids are not happy they want more.


Evenings are reserved for the more exotic fireworks. We wait for the sun to set. After its quite dark we take the kids down and burst vishnu chakra, ground chakra, magnesium wires, magnesium rods and flower pots. The last ones are the rockets which we take to the terrace. After all the fireworks have got over we go back hungry and totally exhausted. This was the kind of Diwali we had for a long long time. I sometimes wonder how time flies without our knowledge. Those days of happiness seem so remote. Our life was low humdrum but happy.