Little joys of light

I am not generally a person who is overenthusiastic about festivals but Diwali definitely has its own charm. There is something about the gentle glow of the Jyot that makes me keep looking at it till it burns out. As the various random scenes associated with Diwali pop up in my head, one particular memory stands out.

Almost every Diwali, we as a family used to visit a family friend’s place on the outskirts of the city. The start of the journey used to be difficult with kids and adults blocking the roads while bursting crackers and one had to be ready to get startled by the untimely boom of the bombs. The lightings covering the houses, though much more subdued as compared to what they are today, seemed extravagant at times. Slowly as we moved away from the city, lighted houses became sparse and the crowd even lesser. The little chill to indicate the onset of winter was evident as well. And as we moved even further ahead along the connecting highway, with tall trees on the side, darkness loomed. Along the highway were small shacks, some of them housing families while some of them intended as shops. But what exactly they sold, I was never able to make out. Some of them were tea stalls with an additional bench for people to sit. They may not have had the fancy lights to illuminate the world, but each one of these shacks definitely had a diya or candle spreading a little warmth.  Not a single place used to be in dark. Sometimes, even the abandoned huts seemed have to have benefitted from benevolence of the neighbours and helped continue the undisrupted string of lights. It was there I truly smiled at the little joys this festival brought.