Fixali

Type Diwali on the keypad of your mobile phone in the T9 mode…

Diwali was nice. But Diwali should be celebrated at home… Lighting the dias, away from family, makes you feel hollow. You can make a million phone calls back home but you can never get the same feeling. Things that you never thought about much when you used to stay at home start coming back to you now. Things I could never imagine doing on my own are being done now. I surprised mummy, very pleasantly at that, when I called her on choti-diwali night and told her that I lit 11 dias.

This time we decided to celebrate diwali the good old way; with a lot of fire-crackers. That meant taking a trip to Hosur and purchasing them. Well, entire Bangalore did exactly that. The moment we crossed the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border, we saw these myriad make-shift shops selling truckloads of crackers. People were carting these away in unbelievable quantities. We got our share and braved the chaotic traffic on Hosur road, in the sweltering afternnon, to get back all tired, yet satisfied. It was totally worth it. It felt great to burst crackers after such a long time. The child-like excitement seen in the professional 23 year-olds, smoking, talking about work and money, tells you they are still kids.

The famous ful-jhari art!! Sidhu and I were up to some antics on the roof while bursting fire crackers. He got really camera happy out there, and the outcome was some really memorable pics.