This Little Divali Light of Mine ...
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| My Divali love: a shadow of its former self? |
Shubh Divali, world! Belated though I be.
The most full of
light thing in the world is love. So, for me, the Mother Laxmi Hindu festival
of light, Divali, is a festival of love.
I love all things
love. So you know I love Divali!
Except ... maybe I
don’t.
I realised just as
I am writing this post that it is the idea of Divali I love, the intention of
it and most definitely the memory of it. But this new face of Divali in
Trinidad and Tobago I don’t really know; so can I claim to love it?
Come together
Growing up in my
little village of Surrey in East Trinidad, we looked forward to Divali like we
did Christmas; especially with my family’s mixture, and having always been
exposed to Christian and Hindu religious ceremony in equal measure.
During the day,
neighbours went around giving out brown bags of blessed parsad, (including a cut of banana, a thin slice of apple, a prune
and a bit what was like a crystallized sugar stone to suck and suck on). We
would be eating parsad from the
fridge for a week. So good!
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| In days of yore these bent bamboo sculptures to hold deyas would have filled this field. |
Later, villagers would come together in the coming dark and light the deyas balancing on the amazingly bent bamboo formations.
As the night
unfolded, while the elders looked on with laughing eyes reflecting many little
lights, we children flitted hither and thither with not a thought of
differences in our minds. We thrilled at being allowed indiscriminate access to
fire, even as fingers were burned by heated oil lapping out of deyas (small clay pots).
I remember
sometimes holding hands with a cousin while one of us used our free hand to
shield out the sweet country breeze as the other was using her free hand to
reignite one deya with another.
There was “cripsy”
kurma and supple parsad to glut on. There was the woomphy boom of bamboo being burst louder even than the nights and
nights before.
I remember smiles
out of shadow, such smiles all around; and darkness, light, music, touching,
diligent hands and the smell of slow-burning sweet oil.
Divali was an
experience of sweet tastes, thrills, magic and holiness, too. It made me feel
good and holy. That’s the Divali I love.
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| There were no elaborate posters in my day, the effort all went into the rituals Photos by Jhaye-Q |
That’s not the
Divali I’ve had in recent years.
I don’t know the
last time I went to a friend’s house to mark the day with prayers, food and
conviviality. Nor when last I went watching lights on people’s houses, or set
on bamboo sculptures in open Savannahs.
I don’t know when
last I set flame to specifically a Divali deya.
It isn’t all my
fault, mind you. People-change-the-country-changes-my-life-changed.
Perhaps in small bucolic
enclaves like my Surrey Divali is still done like there is light and love in
people’s hearts toward everyone. Maybe I’ll get to a place like that soon one
day.
Till then, I must borrow
from Gandhi’s advice and, Be the light
you want to see in the world. Not just on Divali, but every, every day.
Shine on
Trinidad & Tobago: the land of light and shadows. Read more at Trinbago Come Good
For free downloadable photos of true, true TnT, hit the link: Jhaye-Q Trinbago
