On the festival of lights

"Diwali is the festival of lights" is unanimously the first line that strikes any 'thinking about Diwali' mind. Be it seven year olds writing their first essays or a Jhumpa Lahiri defined 'American - Indian' describing it to their American friends and colleagues. It is often followed by the description of little candles, lamps or their modern day counterparts - the electric lights, lit around the house with figurative descriptions of throwing darkness out of our lives. Grannies singing tales of epics Ramayana and Mahabharata with stories of Hindu God Rama returning to Ayodhya after 14 years of exile or Krishna's triumph over Narakasura still hum in our heads.

I cannot speak for all Indian's abroad, but this definitely is one of the days I would like to be at home in India with parents, relatives and friends. No matter how many times I might have run into the quieter sanctums of the house to escape the deafening noises of the bursting fireworks; or fought with my brother over his taunting remarks of my cowardly self, there is a charm about this day. coming from a 'non-orthodox but preserve your culture' South Indian family, I miss waking up at 5.30 in the morning, drawing Hibiscus rosa-sinensis next to mother's elaborate, delicate and exceedingly beautiful rangolis; juggling between salt and sugar bottles being the second-in-command chef of the day; sitting through the long hours of prayers; flaunting around the house in the new clothes; complaining about the wind, aligning the candles/lamps in beautiful shapes; lighting the flowerpots( a kind of fireworks) with sparklers.

In spite of all my successful experiments of cooking and haunts to the Mall and friends' places, the day feels incomplete.

Missing folks back home and wishing you all a very happy Diwali(aka Deepawali)!

~Deepti

Solitude..

A halt, a stop
Then dream away
A smile, a tear
And a thought astray
Cheerful note, confusion's bout
And nostalgia of yesterday!

Surmounting fears for near and dear
Miles apart yet a call away
Robust plans to sail clear
Anything eliciting dismay
Charming yet alarming are
Mundane ways of Solitude's disarray!!

Passing Clouds

Its been almost two months now since I moved into the Bay Area and spending the best parts of my days in San Francisco. Ever since then I have sung to at least a hundred new people I have met, how much I enjoy being here. Leering at my East Coast friends at least a thousand times (given the fiend that I am) about not having to wear heavy shoulder drooping coats or cocooning in the woolen accessories almost suffocating like a tightly tucked claustrophobic kid. Announcing temperatures more blasphemously then the ‘Weight Loss’ commercials announcing the numbers of pounds they help loose without dieting and being so completely eager and happy to hear the initially envied later indifferent ‘Lucky yous’.
  And all of a sudden on the fateful 4th October of 2006, waking up to an overcast damp sky minus the best friend of a stubborn May born – the Sun, struck me like a lightening bolt. It was like being woken from the best dream you ever had just before it ends. Hopes of being out in sunshine vained like the complaining flames of a dying candle. The huge drops of rain and the obvious suggestions to buy an umbrella only added to the agony. The next day seemed no different. Annoyed and late with no sunshine to tickle me awake, armed with a hooded jacket, angry with my best friend I set out to conquer my work-infested world.
After a religiously routine day as I walked out of my office in the evening, the warm sunrays swept my dullness away, making me look foolish in the bright red hooded jacket. The gliders sweeping across the blue sky, SouthWest airlines taking off from Oakland International airport, soft distant Cirrocumulus clouds seemed assurance enough that my life had returned to normalcy. These passing clouds are mere drizzlers waking the mourning gloomy sky with the softest and appealing hues of blues and oranges.

Sunrise: Across the window of a Boeing 737

Sunrises are often the most interesting parts of the day. People wake up at 5 and 6 in the morning to catch the rare sunrise across the lofty green mountains, the vast blue seas, the winter-frozen rivers and all probable nature’s paradise places. The sunrise I witnessed was also a rare one, from the window of a Boeing 737.
This was not the first time I flew in the ‘before the bird wakes’ morning hours. And there have also been times when I crossed the International Date Line; twisting my neck to catch a glimpse of the changing colors of the stretching horizon. But this was definitely my first 54-minute flight to an extremely interesting destination Los Angeles, CA, USA. The homeland to movie world paradise ‘Hollywood' and ‘Disneyland’, to the intellects of UCLA and USC, to the beautiful beaches of Santa Monica, Venice, Long Beach, to the art devotees at Getty Center and countless number of ‘tourist attractions’.
Just across the small window of the Boeing 737 was a dark sky just shy of the golden glow spreading across the distant end of the horizon. The low lying pseudo- wall shaped fluffy clouds turning from grey to golden like the mountains setting on fire giving in to the rage of the molten volcanoes. The sun was rising above these clouds spilling the first soft rays of his golden light. And before I know the 50 minutes was already over. The last four minutes busy with the landing preparations fighting the turbulence tossing the aircraft in and out of the airpockets with my mind singing to the tunes of ‘California Dreaming’ and ‘Californication’. And just after the clouds vanished and the aircraft turned to make the final descent, the eastern sky glowing with the nascent sunrise against the backdrop of the famous Hollywood sign perched on Mt. Lee welcomed my weekend at Los Angeles.