

Ramendra Kumar recalls some beautiful memories of his childhood of Diwali celebrations that were sparkling times of innocence, fun and merriment.
Bauji made the festival of lights sparkle even more with his love, charm and grace.
Pic courtesy: UrbanUrban_ru (Flickr: DIWALI INDIA 2) [CC BY-SA 2.0]
Diwali unleashes a montage of memories: crackers and camaraderie, sweets and sentiments, lights and laughter, rituals and ruckus and lots more. However, the image that is most enduring and endearing is that of my father (Bauji) making the festival of lights sparkle even more with his love, charm and grace.
The first vignette in my stock of reminiscences is the Diwali shopping expedition which I undertook with Bauji and my sister, Gunjan. I was six and supremely excited.
As we entered the market I declared, “Let’s buy crackers.”
“No way, we’ll do the Puja shopping first,” Gunjan, who at 15, considered herself to be more than an adult, replied.
“No, we can do the shopping later,” I insisted, looking at Bauji for support.
“Shut up Ramen, you don’t know anything,” Gunjan snapped.
“Who says? I am also well read, (Ham bhi padhe, likhen hain),” I replied. Bauji burst out laughing and picking me up and hugged me. Gunjan too couldn’t help smiling and as a result, sparklers took precedence over shopping.
Bauji would repeat this remark of mine to anyone who would care to listen, on every Diwali, as long as he lived.
The Puja in our house involved elaborate rituals. When we were young Bauji would make all the arrangements for the Puja with Gunjan helping out and yours truly coming in between. This was the day when Bauji wore a dhoti and kurta, and looked very handsome. Once, the floor was still wet and he got up on the cot to wear his dhoti. When he was in the last stages of his rendezvous with sartorial finesse, I saw him and managed to click a photo. This still remains one of my most precious possessions.
When I was 18, Bauji handed over the responsibility of performing the Lakshmi Puja, to me. I really enjoyed it, more so because he would sit beside me explaining the importance of each and every ritual. After the Puja both of us sang bhajans. It was such a relief to know that there was at least one person in the whole wide world who sang even more tunelessly than me!
This reminds me that the first time the rocket was introduced in India was in 1970, soon after Neil Armstrong’s small step/giant leap episode. Since I was too small to handle a rocket, Bauji decided to experiment. However, due to a combination of inexperience and ineptitude the rocket instead of going up went at an angle and crashed into Bauji’s name plate on the gate. Which actually was a blessing in disguise since it badly needed replacement and Bauji as usual was loath to spend money on anything related to himself – except of course his precious daughter!
I lost Bauji a few years ago and did not celebrate Diwali that year. A year later too I wasn’t very keen. But somehow the tug was too much. I knew in my heart of hearts the festival of lights was special to us in more ways than one. He had been a forced bachelor and me too young to be married. We had thus lived with each other for more than a decade sharing and caring, fighting and making up, reaching out and drawing in. And never were these moments most pronounced than during Diwali. We would argue over the timing, quibble over the decoration, shout at the delay, crib over intrusions, sit together and pray, stand together and sing and then chuckle and chortle at our successful efforts at creating cacophony. Finally after the aarti had been taken I would bend down…. Before I could even touch his feet Bauji would pull me up with first his strong, and later on his frail, hands and hold me tight and hug me…..
“Happy Diwali beta,” he would say and invariably his eyes would be moist.
‘Happy Diwali, Bauji, wherever you are. This bhajan is for you… Without you it sounds almost tuneful…’
More to read
We are editorially independent, not funded, supported or influenced by investors or agencies. We try to keep our content easily readable in an undisturbed interface, not swamped by advertisements and pop-ups. Our mission is to provide a platform you can call your own creative outlet and everyone from renowned authors and critics to budding bloggers, artists, teen writers and kids love to build their own space here and share with the world.
When readers like you contribute, big or small, it goes directly into funding our initiative. Your support helps us to keep striving towards making our content better. And yes, we need to build on this year after year. Support LnC-Silhouette with a little amount - and it only takes a minute. Thank you
Got a poem, story, musing or painting you would like to share with the world? Send your creative writings and expressions to editor@learningandcreativity.com
Learning and Creativity publishes articles, stories, poems, reviews, and other literary works, artworks, photographs and other publishable material contributed by writers, artists and photographers as a friendly gesture. The opinions shared by the writers, artists and photographers are their personal opinion and does not reflect the opinion of Learning and Creativity- emagazine. Images used in the posts (not including those from Learning and Creativity's own photo archives) have been procured from the contributors themselves, public forums, social networking sites, publicity releases, free photo sites such as Pixabay, Pexels, Morguefile, etc and Wikimedia Creative Commons. Please inform us if any of the images used here are copyrighted, we will pull those images down.