The Way it is Meant to Be..

Over the years and decades, Diwali has become a very behemothic festival of our country. However, over the time ways and perspectives of people have changed. It has become more of a shopping oriented festival and the celebrations have become subdued and understated. Not that it is bad, of course, it is always good when businesses flourish in a country, but the allurement and charm of the celebrations have dwindled. Why is that so? Of course, now people are more "eco friendly" and they decide to celebrate a "cracker free" diwali. But mind you, these are the same environment loving people, who otherwise will use elevators for even a single floor, never use a public transport or their feet to go to closer areas, will never care to plant a single tree, will throw trash on road and spit on walls, use plastic with pride and obstinately, and never care to turn off an electric appliance that is not in use!

Obviously I will give one disclaimer here - Not that I support pollution or I hate environment friendliness, this post just highlights my personal thoughts. But just to look "cool" or just because we want to go with the flow, it is really not in the right spirit to abate the delight and beauty of a festival, which since centuries, has been the pride of our culture. What would it look like to see up in the sky on a Diwali night and not find a single colour up there? Let us preserve the charm of a festival that is celebrated by crores of people across the world. We can do all the things listed above all round the year too, to make this world a better place! And above all, if we keep in mind the legal decibels of noise, we can definitely make crackers a better experience for everyone! After all, just because mobiles have  now become a cause of road accidents, it does not mean, we stop using them altogether!

What I am trying to do here is preserve the culture of fire crackers of this beautiful and colourful festival which offers something for all age groups. Personally, I am in love with this festival for everything about it. After everything is over, and I stand quietly in the balcony at 1 a.m. and look around, I find my face reflecting the brightness of the lights around me, which makes me ecstatic, a distant sound of crackers delight me, and suddenly, a beautiful firework far away in the sky enlightens me. There is that pungent and acrid smell of explosives in the air. I see the left overs of the crackers on the road, and I imagine those cheerful kids who must have had the time of their life bursting them. A Few last diyas are still spreading light in dark corners of the world as the most amazing festival of Diwali attempts to spread the strong message of good over evil and happiness among one and all.

I wish everyone an awesome week and a great holiday season! Let us celebrate the way it is meant to be! :)

The Food Fetish

If the title of this blog post, made you smile with delight and glee, then you are totally a food connoisseur (high-five!). With a festival as bright and ablaze as Diwali now round the corner, it was time to write something for my favourite time of the year. Festivals in India are almost synonymous with food and delicacies. No festival is complete unless kids of the house (and I include myself in this) raid the food items kept exclusively for the guests, only to hear a mouthful from their mothers.

With whole of the nation, now getting into the festive feel and already done with the cleaning part, people are now busy in preparation of suitable festive dishes. From alluring and appetizing gulab jamun to the fresh, soft and luring kaaju barfis, which I usually consume in scary quantities, Diwali definitely brings a lot for me. While our Southern counterparts indulged in the tasty Mysore Pak and Coconut Cake, along with the sweet Groundnut Barfi, the Northern India finds solace in sinfully ghee dipped sweets like Besan Laddu, Neelam Barfi, Kesar Pak, Poran Poli and many more.

Sometimes I feel that foreign travellers like Marco polo, Duarte Barbose, Captain William Hawkins, and Thomas Coryat should have exclusively explored the Indian delicacies and carried out research on the food here, after all, we are the reason behind the “Delhi belly”! However, people like me have made up for what those guys missed out. I believe, India has always been a food loving land, only our expressions have changed over time. From the verbal scream of "I am feeling hungry, mom...", we have now moved on to "Give me food @Mom... #Hungry" (Updated 2 seconds ago). 

 With types of kachoris being one of the most entertaining topics in parties and meetings in Rajasthan, the best street vendors of vada pao is a much awaited discussion in parts of Maharashtra, especially Mumbai. Almost half of our food loving population wakes up to South Indian dishes in breakfast and moves up towards north as Sun moves from east to west, ending up with Dal Makhani, Aaloo Amritsari and Shahi Paneer in dinner. That is how we enjoy the diversity of our cultures in India!

As Diwali approaches, let us pledge to be prepared to launch an attack on our kitchens and dry fruit boxes in the house, with lots of aggression and bound by duty (Also with a tablet of dygiene in our secret closets). I wish everyone a great Pre-Diwali week and hope that everyone has a food filled Diwali, as smell of freshly fried kachori enters my room performing an imaginary crazy dance. I Rush!

J