A Diwali memory · Vizag
Diwali, in All Its
Glorious Disorder.
When cousins arrived, crackers occupied the terrace, and the house forgot what silence sounded like.
The beginning
The Annual Invasion
Diwali in our childhood was not merely a festival. It was an annual extravaganza of cousins, crackers, sweets, and gloriously unregulated enthusiasm.
Every year, our aunt would descend from Bombay with her children, Poochie and Shravi, while our cousin brothers, Koushi and Kashyap, joined the festivities in Vizag.
Our independent bungalow faced the beach. A double road ran alongside the shore; beyond it lay open, uneven land before our gate. The driveway climbed from there to our front door.
With the cousins' arrival, our respectable residence became the headquarters of a small, excitable, sugar-fuelled republic. Children were everywhere. On beds. Under tables. In the kitchen. Occasionally, where they were supposed to be.
The adults called it a family gathering. We considered it a temporary suspension of civilization.
And Diwali was still days away.
Department of strategic acquisitionProcurement
The Cracker Procurement Department
No Diwali was complete without the ceremonial expedition to the cracker stalls on Gurudwara Road with my dad.
This was not shopping. This was strategic acquisition.
We examined flowerpots, sparklers, chakras and rockets with the seriousness of defence procurement officers operating on a considerably more colorful budget. Quantity or magnificence? Another packet of sparklers or one splendid flowerpot? And what, precisely, was everybody else getting?
Back home, the purchases were divided into individual collections. Fairness was paramount. One extra cracker in a cousin's pile could precipitate a constitutional crisis.
At last, our treasures were ours. Unfortunately, Diwali was not yet upon us.
Asset protection
The Terrace Treasury
The crackers had to be spread on the terrace to dry in the sun. Their owners, however, were in no mood to relax.
Every packet had a proprietor. Every proprietor harboured suspicions. And every cousin feared an inexplicable reduction of personal wealth.
We made repeated pilgrimages upstairs, ostensibly to inspect the drying process, but principally to ensure that our assets had not suffered unauthorized redistribution.
Had that packet moved? Wasn't there another flowerpot yesterday? A cousin hovering nearby was practically cause for an inquiry.
We knew our inventories with a precision rarely displayed in our schoolwork. Morning inspections. Afternoon inspections. Entirely unnecessary inspections.
The sun did its work. We did our worrying.
The crackers needed sunshine. We needed reassurance.
Recreation
The Chiranjeevi School of Performing Arts
Even the most vigilant guardians of combustible wealth needed recreation.
There was hide-and-seek. Freeze. Games whose rules changed whenever somebody was losing. And dancing—oh, the dancing!
Chiranjeevi was the reigning superstar. His movie songs turned our living room into an impromptu stage. We attempted his steps with tremendous conviction and a negotiable relationship with choreography.
Talent was optional. Enthusiasm was compulsory.
When dancing exhausted us, the beach beckoned. We dug tunnels in the sand, reaching through to clasp a cousin's hand on the other side, sometimes crawling through our creations ourselves.
Our architectural qualifications were nonexistent. Our confidence was absolute. When a tunnel collapsed, we simply dug again.
No screens, no schedules, and certainly no shortage of entertainment. Boredom would have been an unwelcome guest.
At last
When the Evening Finally Arrived
At last, the terrace treasury was released. New clothes appeared, sweets circulated, and our entrance gate stood open.
Just outside the house, near that gate, we lit our fireworks. Behind us, the driveway rose toward the bungalow; ahead lay the uneven land, the double road and the beach.
Sparklers shimmered. Flowerpots erupted. Chakras spun with magnificent unpredictability.
My favorites, however, were the most unassuming: little black snake tablets. Once lit, they produced long, curling, ash-grey serpents. Fascinating. Slightly revolting. Utterly irresistible.
While others admired the sky, I watched a modest tablet perform what looked like a minor geological miracle. Clearly, my taste for peculiar exhibits began rather early.
My father is a marine engineer. I also remember expired alert cartridges from his professional world producing an extraordinary red glow under his handling. Their working life was over; their capacity to astonish us was not.
I cannot claim to have understood the engineering. But I remember the color a vivid flash of my father's world entering ours.
A vivid flash of another world.
The quiet centre
The Woman Behind the Wonder
While we guarded crackers and perfected our dance moves, Amma accomplished a feat of considerably greater complexity: making Diwali happen.
Sarees to buy. New clothes for the children. Sweets and savouries to prepare. Meals to organize. Guests to welcome. A houseful of cousins to feed. Our aunt joined the festive bustle, but Amma was its quiet centre.
We devoured everything with the untroubled efficiency of people who had contributed absolutely nothing to its preparation.
We worried about a missing flowerpot. Amma had an entire household to think about.
To us, the clothes appeared, the sweets were ready, and the festivities simply happened. Only later did I understand the extraordinary labor concealed in that deceptively simple word.
Happened.
Epilogue
The Luxury Question
Eventually, the crackers ran out. The cousins went home. Our bungalow rediscovered silence.
Do children today have the luxury we enjoyed? Perhaps every generation finds its own pleasures. Ours was gloriously noisy, frequently sandy, occasionally smoky, and almost always shared.
We had cousins, a beach across the road, games invented on the spot, and songs that turned any room into a dance floor. Our hands were far too busy to miss a screen.
We thought we were waiting for Diwali.
Perhaps we were really waiting for everyone to come home.
A little Diwali gift from GoluGirl
The StoriesWe Light Again
Eight little questions. A lifetime of stories.
Every family has its Diwali stories. Some are told every year. Others lie quietly tucked away until someone asks just the right question.
We've been revisiting a few from our own childhood—and thought it might be lovely if you did the same.
So we created The Stories We Light Again, a collection of eight beautifully illustrated conversation cards to print, cut out, and share with your family.
Pick a card. Ask a question. Let the memories wander.
You may discover that the best Diwali stories aren't always about the festival itself, but about the people who made it unforgettable.
We hope this little Diwali gift from GoluGirl finds a place in your celebrations this year—and perhaps sparks a story or two worth remembering.
Grab Your Diwali Gift