Diwali, and Why Haven't I Written Lately?

Flower wallahs tending coils

Jasmine surrounds Om and Ganesh

Sand and flower Rangoli

Diwali celebrates Rama's triumph over the evil Demon Ravana. Thus, in Man's dark time the God's brought forth fire to illuminate in reality and symbol this communal gift to be shared. Many faiths, peoples, and religions have an element of this and enact it with the lighting of a candle. India is similar in this respect, but differs in not stopping there. Candles are placed at the front door to keep out spirits and so that you can find your way home once the shelling starts. This is important because this is a five-day event, and the fireworks start on day one. India doesn't have a 4th of July per se, nor do they live it up on New Years as Americans do. But for Diwali, even the youngest of the young and the smallest of the small get to light the brightest, loudest, cherry cherry-est bombs of them all. This starts promptly at 6pm and lets up around midnight. We still get up at 2am. All the stone houses echo the glee and delight of the season.

Bedroom view of the winds

As I write, I expect the power to go out. It has been great actually, only failing for a few minutes at a time only a few times in three weeks. But the monsoon is still upon us- light as it is as far as monsoons go- but rain shadows our every move. It's hard to be homesick in that way, although it is warmer. Our laundry capabilities have diminished, our long walks have turned to quick scampers, but we've become good at predicting when the storm will hit. It's been hard to feel creative or even to talk about nothing. I've been playing a lot of rock music stored on the laptop in the afternoons, and the Seattle sound of Soundgarden seems to sooth the soaked parts of my psyche. I've even broken out Mozart's Requiem on one particular grey day. Two movie soundtracks, Donnie Darko and The Sorcerer (Tangerine Dream) offer a reminder of my mellow-spooky Butohsoul and are in heavy rotation compared to the peppy Slumdog Millionaire played halfway through only once. All this because my MP3 died. Or rather it's in "recovery" and until it gets a re-boot from the disc at home, it's having withdrawl and can't go on.That's where all my Tool is, and most of my chanting tracks. Fate. I was here when Slumdog came out, and now I'm here when a real "Slumdog Millionaire" actually wins One-M for the first time on the show. I need to slow down and keep it all in  perspective, and try to stay in the middle. And remember to talk about it once in a while.

"Don't screw me Jagdesh, 20 kilos of Marigolds..."

Aeryk