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Photograph: Sreeram Selvaraj
'I want every day to be Diwali'
NAME: The Balajis, Chennai

As a young girl, Gayathri used to mark on the calendar the number of days to go before Deepavali arrived. "Those were the days. Though we celebrated Diwali in a very simple way, I really looked forward to this one festival, my favourite."

She says the excitement has now gone away. But her daughter Lavanya interrupts, "We are waiting for Diwali to come! I don’t particularly like new clothes but I love crackers. Crackers and sweets are what we love. I like only the sweets my mother prepares at home, and not the ones bought from shops."

Narayanan echoes his sister’s views. "I love crackers. I love the sweets my mother makes at home. They are very tasty. I want every day to be Diwali so that I can burst crackers every day and eat sweets also every day."

Preparations for Diwali start at least a week in advance in the Balaji household. Shopping for new clothes is the first event on the agenda. This is followed by making sweets and savouries. Gayathri believes in preparing everything at home. "Can you get the love and affection and care that go into preparing each and everything in what we get from a sweet shop?"

Balaji and his family always spend Diwali with his mother and father. His mother would help everyone take their oil baths. After the baths were over she would give out the new clothes to the family. The homemade sweets and savouries would be offered to the gods and then the entire family would explode firecrackers. Then the whole family would troop over to see Gayathri’s parents.

"We have been following this pattern year after year," says Balaji.

When the day ends, both Lavanya and Narayanan feel sad. "We have to wait another whole year for another Diwali to come!"

Text: Shobha Warrier

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