Bang, Bang ~ Diwali ~ continued

Diwali is a two day affair. The first day is the pious one. That's when people get together, review things related to wealth, look at their gains and at their losses over the year, laugh a little, cry a little - and then shut their books on that year, forever. The End. No more looking back, now it's faces to the front and look at a clean slate.

Then each house, business premise, every neighbourhood is scrubbed clean, because someone really important is going to show up at sunset.

Fancy lights are strung up across buildings, homes, lamposts, residential gates, everything and candles are placed at the entry to homes that are eager to welcome Laxmi, the Goddess of Wealth. She is finicky. She wants things spic and span. Each home and business has a puja, a worship, to welcome her and to make sure that she does indeed visit. And if she likes the look of a place, who knows - maybe she'll hang around for at least some of the year and shower some goodies on those fortunate and pious people.

My wife Panda, is utterly Godless. There were dirty dishes in the sink. Lakshmi cannot bear dirty dishes, though I have never heard of her offering to do them herself. As a consequence, in all likelihood, we will be impecunious this year. Again.

After the puja is over, the gambling begins. Laxmi loves the game of chance. If she favors you at Diwali, you can be sure she'll be at your side throught the year. I'm usually lucky at Diwali, where you play something similar to poker.

So that's Day One of Diwali.

On Day Two, the fun and games continue, as people rush back and forth to each others' homes with sweets, fruit, and nuts, and presents. Usually the gifts are large tacky, plasticky corporate gift type objects - such as wall clocks - that have been rejected en masse and are offloaded for just this occasion. Cards are seldom attached to these gifts, so its always a bit of a puzzle trying to figure out who to thank for what. Although Thanks is not really neccesary. In fact, there is no word for "Thanks" in any Indian language, that I'm aware of. The roads are filled with carloads and buses full of people in a frenzy late until dusk.

At dusk, a more personal puja, or worship happens, and then, the show really gets on the road. The fireworks start now - every kind of explosive device is fired and the light show and thunderous sounds continue till 2 am, in every neighbourhood, across cities, towns and villages. Fireworks in India are not the sanitized type that you see over a serene Sydney Harbour, or near the Washington Monument on the Fourth of July. Fireworks here are entirely personalized, with each one bringing his or her own particular barrage of Darkness Busters to the show. The real players in the game wait till about midnight and then bring out an arsenal that would put the defence services of most countries to rout. I find the entire sound and light show utterly irrisistable and stay awake listening for the last little phut, bang and boom.

Once again, my godless Panda slinks off to her usual Diwali hiding place, under a warm quilt and closes doors and windows to blot out the awesome din and smog - something like rocket fire in Lebanon in the good old days (the '70's for young 'uns). For sure, Laxmi is going to blitz us sometime this year. What the heck. So, I'll get a little more practice dealing with difficult women. On the other hand, she and Panda can deal with it themselves. I love Hinduism. You can take personal issue with gods and goddesses who get unpleasant. Although there is no complaint book, you can always switch allegiance and find a good god or goddess without too much trouble - there are a few thousand here. Then again, who wants to be on the wrong side of the goddess of wealth? Umm. I'd better have a word with Panda. Sigh.

I buzzed off to the neighbourhood park just in time to watch old Mr. Whazzizname, hunched over like a comma, being chased around the park by a badly launched rocket that sprayed fiery embers all over the place. Finally, he flung himself face down in the grass and the rocket scorched past and slammed to a stop at a convenient and kindly tree. Not far from my nose. Mr. Whazzis then proceeded to go ballistic after the inept fellow who'd launched that Monster Blaster.

The night is young. Who knows what other treasures await in this New Year.