GharWaliDiwali

                 

    Diwali, a festival of lights! A festival of joy and happiness! A festival where families come together! Some leave the hustle and bustle of cities for vacations! Rangolis are made! Sweets are eaten! Crackers are burst (something I detest!) Clothes are bought!

   There are many who will take off to altogether new destinations and places but there shall be many who will celebrate Diwali at their own homes! Because there is nothing like a #GharWaliDiwali …

The essence of a festival can only be felt at home! Mother’s delicious recipes and sweets she shall cook! The wonderful Rangolis that we shall decorate our entry with! The various movies we shall see and the many more things we do together as a family! The painting and gardening we shall do with dad! The cleaning!

Talking about family, I have a family…a second family, a second home, indeed! And that is the tuition class! There are a number of children coming and I am friends with all of them! I usually play cricket or football with them, organize events but celebrating festivals is an altogether different experience! Although, just a one and a half hour event, plans were made almost a fortnight before the actual day. The seventh graders who had apparently no exams were given the responsibility to prepare for the event! They doled out suggestions that there should be a play, and some sort of competition! The idea of the play was rejected.

Finally, a Rangoli competition was zeroed in.(lantern making was too complicated!) We divided ourselves in groups, according to our batch timings. Some students insisted on decorating the divas!

Finally, at four thirty or so, everyone was there, ready in somewhere between traditional and formal clothing. We, fussy boys that we are, said we’d feel hot in the traditional kurtas; hence all boys were mostly in formal shirts or jackets. Nevertheless the girls, mostly all, wore traditional salwar-kameez.

I was in the 3:45 group. That’s because most of them were my friends, we played and had done many activities earlier...we had skipped the idea of painting diyas(no patience, you see)! We decided to make a Rangoli!

I had seen mom in a traditional outfit, or to be precise, in a saree and bangles after a really long time!
                       
 She looked beautiful! And dad, in a formal cream shirt after a not-so-very long time, looked dashing! I managed a selfie with the queen 

but my stars were against a selfie with the king…
                                
                                    

           My friend had made some designs for the Rangoli. I thought of making some designs too…Google images were of no help! It did have some lovely themes but we are feeble artists!

     So, I tried to use my hilariously pathetic drawing skills to make some Rangoli designs! I tried making two fish, in the form of two arcs parallel to each other-a symbol of Good Luck. I tried drawing a pot with a coconut and leaves in it! A kalash! I then drew a square with an OM in the center and four swastika symbols surrounding it. This one looked the best. The rest designs explained why architecture is not on my career wish-list! (I have a feeling that the design of the Leaning tower of Pisa, was made by me in one of my past lives! A technical flaw, maybe?)

None of my designs were chosen…however, my loving friends, said that the designs were great! I came up with an idea to make a Rangoli that used two of the designs of the four made by my mate. The inner circle had to be huge. It would have an OM symbol, probably! The outer circle would by bordered with curved somewhat like…

We had this one seventh grader who said he could draw well…he did a good job indeed! He drew the borders with a white chalk.

                     
          

Shahaan, surprisingly, in a kurta!!!

We managed to borrow a diva Rangoli shape (please tell me what that thing is called!) from a second grade boy (shame on us!) and his sister…they gave it willingly. It looked divine at the center of our Rangoli! (Hey! I said we’ll draw an OM…you traitors!)

Things never turn out to be as we plan them! The space between the circle, to be originally filled pentagons or circles or triangles, maybe we decided the easier method. We took another Rangoli shape… (what is it called?)

    So we took another “it” from the boy. This time it looked something like leaves or a WIFI signal! After a ten minute long discussion we zeroed in on four WIFI signals…we selected two orange ones and two purple (those were the only colours we had, except white of course!). We happily adulterated the orange and purple with a bit of white.

The centre was covered with flowers…god knows how many kilos they had purchased. The seventh grade wrote happy Diwali with flowers…and there yet seemed to be a kilo of flowers left. We utilized them to decorate the inside, centre and outside of our Rangoli!

All of us generously shared our colours and flowers. Our Rangolis looked great. The divas too turned out to be very good...they had done a superb job!

The diva painted with precision!!!

Electric Diva!

Dad, helping out with  the divas...

             The other groups made a diva shaped Rangoli…one group made “Happy Diwali” with flowers…another made OM and divas…and a small group of girls, who apparently did not find a group to be a part of made a cute little design-this one was a typical one! Here are the photos:

The Rangoli made by the primary students!

The rangoli made by seventh graders! HAPPY DIWALI with flowers!

                                            

The tenth batch made a Diva rangoli!

We danced…most of them were shy…everyone waved goodbyes…our Happy New Year movie plan required modification thanks to some stupid compulsory classes! The tenth graders were given their homework…

The most important thing that happened was-we came together and celebrated, we made Rangolis, we came together like a family after a long session of exams! We had fun!

All were going to have a different Diwali! I had already had the feeling of Diwali! A gift-had already come at my doorstep-the Backpack I won in an IndiBlogger contest!

I would celebrate the Diwali at home…buy new clothes…and most importantly relax and read! Of course, #NoCrackers !!!

I have already celebrated #GharWaliDiwali…and planning to spend the rest with joy, happiness and my family!!!

 

                       celebrated by : Shahen Pardiwala