Squeezing Diwali into a work day

It might not be akin to the festivities in her native Delhi, but Sonia Kumar makes the most of Diwali in Chicago.

To me, Diwali has always meant crisp fall air, an afternoon that has gotten dark surprisingly early, and squeezing in a puja (prayers) and an elaborate dinner between homework, the kids' extracurricular activities and a school-night appropriate bedtime.

This is Chicago, after all, not Delhi -- where I would love to be with family at this time of the year -- and where it is warm and the air is especially smoggy with celebratory firecrackers.

Ideally, holidays and the accompanying festivities should help us to be grateful and joyous, but realistically, they can also highlight loneliness or distance. So, in our Chicago fall, which means decreasing sunlight and where my family and I are separated from the rest of our extended family, it seems especially poignant to celebrate the Festival of Lights and to teach our children to appreciate its meaning.

On the morning of our previous Diwali, I dressed my eager daughter, Simran, in a traditional salwar kameez. She was taking popcorn to her preschool, along with a couple of storybooks about Diwali.

I was also dressed in a salwar kameez to collect Rajkumar from grade school with my youngest one, Avinash, accompanying me.

My trip offered a couple surprises. First, an Indian acquaintance inquired about my garb.

'Happy Diwali,' I responded. She was sheepish and said she had forgotten.

Rajkumar's teacher, who is not South Asian, saw me from afar and called, 'Happy Diwali!' How refreshing to be mainstream, but disheartening that someone from India can still forget that it is Diwali.

Click here to shop for Express Diwali gifts online with rediff!

At home, later that afternoon, I took my three kids out on the front walkway to make a rangoli with coloured sand.

That activity lasted approximately two minutes and was complaint-laden: 'Mom, the wind keeps blowing all the sand!'

I realised that any outdoor diyas would meet the same fate, so I shrugged my shoulders, told the kids to let the sand blow away, and we all went in. We lit the lights in all the rooms and my mother and I kept at the dinner and puja preparations.

As a way to recognise all of our family members, we traditionally write each member's name and whereabouts on a poster board. We also include the stock market valuations for the day. Diwali is about wealth (all kinds), after all.

It was a hectic day, but when we finally sat down together to do the puja, my husband, mother, and I were reinvigorated by our prayers while the children enjoyed the setting of everybody being together and a different prayer routine.

With dessert first (Halwa as prasad), a scrumptious dinner and presents, the children were thrilled with their weekday holiday.

That night, just a little bit later than our normal bedtime, I tucked the kids in.

The reflections from the diyas in our mandir (the temple in the house) were still dancing around the hallway, the agarbatti (incense sticks) scent was present throughout the house, and from outside, rather than the sound of fireworks, I could hear the Chicago wind howling them to sleep.

Sonia Kumar lives in Naperville, Chicago, with her three children, husband, and mother. She has a master's degree in communication.