Deepavali 2010

Friday was Deepavali. Wiki has enough information, but I will add that it is the biggest celebration in India for Hindus and is celebrated around the world, for all of us.

Growing up it's probably my earliest memories, 1978 or 1979 thereabouts at the Kale's house in Newman, lighting candles in the dark at our only Indian friends in town. I can think of years alone in Melbourne where it didn't mean much, but since N's arrival, its become more important. We intended to attend the Deepavali celebrations at Fed Sq this year, but it was a wash out, so will wait for next. Deepti talks of being at home for Holi (in March) and Deepavali and Chhat Pooja in October November. We hope one day to be able to achieve Deepavali in Patna but not this year.

This year, I took the afternoon off from work and came home to help set-up. Deepti prepared some food (puris which are a type of shallow fried bread, potato/cauliflower subzi which carried a kick and some sweets) and also did a rangoli using N's feet as the model.

Rangoli at front of house

Getting dressed up is part of the day so I wore a suit from my wedding and Deepti wore a sari. Naina got out her new lahenga from Anveeta bua and Sarva got baby clothes.

Naina modelling her new lahenga (skirt, blouse, scarf).
This took about seven attempts before N would stand still for more than one second.

We then did the pooja (badly, I'd forgotten most of the essential words) and then aarati and photos.

Naina doing Aarati, me trying to remember the words.

The family in portrait mode

Moody, note youngest child almost losing nappy

A photo based on a lie. Naina didn't want to share the
besan ladoo with me. I think she's thinking "Don't eat it all daddy"

First go with auto-timer - Naina requiring both of us
to keep her head pointing at the camera. And we still
were clearly not ready for the photo.

Second go with auto-timer. Sarva knew we'd
be concentrating on the camera, so he snuck in some solids.