Despite belonging to a community that doesn’t celebrate Diwali with as much gusto as its own regional festivals, my Mumbai upbringing has ensured that I celebrate Diwali with great zeal and zest. Diwali to me not only means a week long vacation …but also everything that is typical of a Sooraj Barjatya or a Yashraj movie – loved ones and camaraderie amidst antakshari and dance, exchanging sweets and namkeens all decked up in bright clothes and jewellery and traditional pujas and feasts in houses adorned with brightly lit diyas, lanterns and colourful motifs of rangoli designs.  

And hence my excitement knew no bounds, as Diwali was nearing and we were to fly from London, a city where I had moved in with my husband immediately after marriage, to join our friends and relatives back in India to celebrate my first Diwali as a newly wed.  

‘Heartbroken’ seemed to me like a mild word then, when my husband announced to me just a fortnight before we were to leave, that we would not be in a position to visit India for Diwali as some technical problem had risen in the project that he headed, which needed him to be around. I was only half-hearing whatever he was saying then…for it was slowly dawning upon me that I was being asked to be away from a land where I had enjoyed 26 spirited Diwalis of my life…I was being asked to be away from everyone and everything that my mind associated with the word ‘celebration’.

As the days passed by, 'dejection' slowly assumed the form of 'guilt' and then gradually 'envy' as the Diwali frenzy forcefully threw itself on me, every time I switched on any of the Indian television channels. I sunk deeper into depression. After brooding and sulking endlessly, I gave up. I could take it no longer. I did not want to let the festivity pass without having my share of fun.

“So what, if I can’t be home,” I started thinking to myself. “The festival has earned a global appeal,” I consoled myself, somehow strangely. “If the House of Commons in London can resemble India through their official celebrations on Diwali, if there can be a carnival at the Trafalgar Square on the occasion of Diwali, if Diwali can be the biggest festival outside India in Leicester with a main street which gets lit with hundreds and thousands of lights, why then can’t I celebrate it at a home away from home,” I convinced myself.

A home away from home! With that very thought, an alien country and a house in a foreign land suddenly transformed into ‘my very own abode’. I realised that even though this was not my mother’s house or my mother-in law’s, where a new bride would be pampered and spoilt on her first Diwali, I still had reasons to be happy, for this was a home that welcomed me, a nervous new bride into its comfort and which therefore rightly deserved the joy of my first celebration. I knew that this was certainly not the place that held my past memories, but also came to accept that this could very well be the place where I could create new ones.

I fondly recalled that this was the very home where I had set foot after marriage, my eyes welling with love as my husband welcomed me with a traditional lamp in his hand. It had moved me deeply then to see that he had daintily arranged a silver plate on the doorstep that held wet vermillion which smeared my feet with its deep red to leave footprints as I walked into the house even as he showered grains of basmati rice on me, happy in the ignorance that they were the finest and the costliest variety of grains.  

I looked around and realised that this was the very home within the walls of which I saw my marriage blossoming amidst coffee and candid conversations, a home where every piece of furniture unravelled a story of the bitter-sweet arguments between me and my husband over the pounds to be shelled out before we would bring a piece home, a home where every utensil clinked with the nostalgia of my careful scrutiny as I chose it to be a part of my sacred space, a home which although was a part of a land that was alien to us, but which still held close to its heart the memories of our togetherness.

As I recalled those beautiful moments, I felt everything around me being brightened up. It now feels like I have been hit by an amnesia that refuses to accept that I’m in a foreign land. With full gusto, I spent all day yesterday crazily shopping and picking whatever Diwali goodies I could in a land that I now call my own. Today, I have also called my Indian friends home so that we can share recipes and churn out Indian delicacies amidst gossip and friendly banter. In fact, I find it myself difficult to believe that together  with my bunch of ‘crazy new-found relatives with like minds’, I’m all geared to organise a community gathering and a mass Lakshmi Puja, to recreate in my own lawn the atmosphere of my homeland.

I know this Diwali will be special, and that I will celebrate it with much verve than ever before…for I have realised…that celebration never asks for an address.