We keep the doors and windows open for the festival of Diwali…

Flashy colorful lights flickering in the background of our blurred family pictures is a highlight every year that we click and share with our distant relatives.

Permanent rangolis with oil paints, which starts from perfection and ends with shaky lines from lack of patience, has its place in my heart. We paint over the same washed away design every year which has at least two shoe prints and dog paws imprinted on it forever by family members walking mindlessly throughout the house during festivals.

Washing earthen diyas(lamps) hoarded from the previous year’s celebration and soaking them in water for a day is a ritual in my family. We do it so that diyas don't end up soaking the oil. We roll small cotton balls into wicks and infuse them in oil for a long-lasting flame. Placing the lit diyas at every possibly safe corner of my house fills me with happiness and light. Dim yellow lights from diyas has its own charm.

We painlessly paint small baby feet at the two corners of every entrance of the house to welcome the goddess Laxmi into our home. This year my siblings painted Laxmi’s feet at every door, even at the door to the washroom. They said goddess Laxmi might need to use the restroom. I think their motivation was to get a lot of wealth to buy cool stuff.

We amped up our decorations since last year as it is a huge source of joy on Diwali, and last year was very difficult. We started drawing out designs with powdered rice in front of our house. I don't call it a floor decoration but a grand feast for the unregistered guests. You can see it disappearing in the days after Diwali as small and big creatures like ants, birds, cows feast on it.

We buy sweet boxes from the local shop a day before Diwali to avoid rush and stare at it securely stored in this 4 ft by 3 ft holy place called Mandir, till puja muhurat(most auspicious time for prayers). My mother performs all the rituals like singing prayers, offering flowers and sweets to the sculptures of gods & goddesses, ringing bells, putting tika (red vermillion dot in the middle of the forehead) to everyone in the family including my dogs. My brother blow out loud peculiar sounds from the holly shell, it requires a lot of lung strength to do that. After the rituals, we all get a sweet each in our hands(called prasad) from the sweet box, finally!

Distributing sweets is a tradition that has made it simpler for an awkward person like me to interact with neighbors on Diwali. If you live in a close-knit society like mine, you can hear people having fun with their families. Sounds of people laughing, talking, and bursting crackers fill your Diwali night in a sense of belonging with flickering lights and decorated homes. The whole visual is lit, sometimes literally, but all is happy and gay.

It can get noisy and loud for my dogs, so I stuff them with delicious early dinner and help them fall asleep in the innermost, sort of soundproof room of our house. It is the same routine, same celebration, same food every year so it's enjoyable without the pressure and fear of the unknown.

I remember how much I loved loud noises of crackers bursting till late at night in my younger days when I didn't relate it to sad thoughts of the elderly getting disturbed and street animals getting horrified. We as a family made a conscious decision to stop bursting crackers on Diwali in the last decade after the passing away of a very close family member. We as individuals and as a family together faced a very long period of grieving, no one talked about whether we have grieved enough or should we start bursting crackers to embark on a new beginning. To tell you frankly I miss it sometimes, not the loud noisy ones but the glittering and glowing ones, but somehow we never even bought crackers again.

Like every year, this Diwali was filled with sounds, visuals, smells, and flavors of nostalgia giving a sense of love, family, and joy. But this year something new happened, late at night, a white cloud entered my house as we keep the doors and windows open for the festival. In that cloud, I saw why I'm not bursting crackers anymore, even the glittering and glowing ones. It's not because we are still grieving but because we are still breathing. We are changing the narrative, attaching happy emotions to better choices for our future, and subconsciously choosing our ways of celebrating life. Every alive being and its action is connected, which is life.