Diwali and New Year 2009

Here's wishing all my readers a VERY HAPPY DIWALI.

I also wish each one of you a very happy and prosperous New Year.

Most of you don't celebrate New Year at this time of the year. But where I come from, the state of Gujarat in India, we celebrate New Year on the first day of the month of Kartak according to the lunar calendar, which is typically the day after Diwali.

Growing up in India, New Year was all about wearing new clothes, visiting family, bowing down to elders to get their blessings and receiving gifts (mostly cash ;). Since I never worked while I was in India (except for the 3 months after my BE graduation), I always use to joke with Dad saying - "New Year is the day where I make the most money ;) :)".

It's been 10 years that I have been away from home now. This was the 10th year in a row that I spent Diwali and New Year away from my parents. I am going to try my best to be with them next year. Festivals have much more meaning when elders are around. Without them, I am kind of lost and spend all my time in social gatherings and outings.

Having said that, this year we celebrated our first Diwali and New Year in our new home. It was SPECIAL!!!! My sister is staying with me, so it was her, my hubby and me. We did not do anything fancy, but we did many little things that are memorable - I will cherish them for a long time to come :).

We bought Xmas lights, and even though we didn't have a 8-ft ladder to hang the lights from the roof, we managed to arrange them in a decent manner with my friend Andy's help, as you can see in the picture above. On Diwali day, my hubby lighted diyas and candles outside as well as inside the house.

The morning on Diwali was spent in making phone calls to family spread around the world - India, UK, Middle East, US, etc. Then my dear friend Prateek drove over from San Jose to surprise us....he bought a new car earlier that week, and wanted to show it to us, and also spend some time with me at my home, since it was my first Diwali in the new house. We had a great few hours with him, after which my friend Ekta came home to visit me from San Francisco. I went with her for garba at my college that night, and met so many college friends that I had not connected with in a long time.

Sunday we had arranged for a potluck at our place. I woke up early and spent time cleaning the house, and after my sister woke up, we started preparing the food (ras malai's for dessert :)). My sister had marinated all the veggies the previous night, and we were going to BBQ them on our brand new grill that was gifted to us at the housewarming.

The BBQ was a blast. We BBQ'ed paneer, bell peppers of different colours, onions, pineapple and corn. It was yum yum yum :). The rest of the potluck items was okay. I was little disappointed with the quantity of food that "some" people brought, but we managed it fine.

Since we are on the topic, I want to share my frustration w.r.t potlucks. There are few people who almost always show up with less food. Or some with no food. I actually don't like potlucks at all. I rather cook everything and treat my friends to a good meal, than deal with this kind of frustration. But since I work and don't have so much time to cook for everyone always, this works out good.

How do you tell these people (who are friends) to bring enough quantity? It is easy for me to ask each of my friends to bring something, and so I don't have an issue where someone shows up with nothing now, but I still find it hard to ask a person to bring more quantity. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Ofcourse one option is to avoid inviting such people, but its not always possible.

Anyway, after the lunch, we all played cards for a while, and then my friends had tea, and left. The sky was cloudy and we saw a rainbow from our backyard.

We spent the evening doing Satsang for an hour, and watching some telly.

I will remember doing the lights outside our home, also the look of the house with lights n diyas, Prateek's surprise visit and driving his new car, garba with Ekta, the first BBQ in our backyard, and the relaxing evening Satsang with my sister and hubby. And I will remember all the blessings and good wishes from my family and friends who I spoke over the phone.

I had a great festive weekend, and hope you did too!