Diwali special: Funky lighting ideas!

You have freshly painted your home and redone the decor for the festive season. Now it is time to bring in that spark of excitement and what better way to do that than with an array of colourful lights. After all, Diwali is the 'Festival of lights'.

From the traditional diyas to funky modern lamps, you can use lights to transform your home into a splendid haven for your family and friends.

DIYA MAGIC

"We have special colourful earthen lamps called pantis that we use to decorate our homes during Diwali," says Gaurita Wagh, a Maharashtrian. "Traditionally, these pantis were filled with ghee and then lit," she explains.

But today you can take these little diyas and place lit wax tea lights in each of them. Try arranging them at strategic points around your rangoli.

If you are looking for something that you can use year after year, pick up a large metal diya, fill it with water and set afloat a couple of tea lights. It will make a great centrepiece. You can buy these from stores like Good Earth or Lifestyle.

"Having 14 diyas is auspicious because Lord Rama returned home after 14 years of exile from the forests," Himika Ganguly, a Bengali explains.

Quick tip: Choose tiny earthen pots that can fit just a single tea light and use them to decorate your balcony ledge. They are available in a variety of colours, decorated with mirror, tinsel and the works.

FASCINATING LANTERNS

"Kandeels (paper lanterns) are an exciting part of our Diwali decorations," says Gaurita. They are hung outside the door and are generally made of red and yellow crepe or sandwich paper. It is said the lantern is guiding light for Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth.

So go ahead, welcome prosperity into your home and drive away evil with colourful lanterns. Local markets are the best place to get crepe, sandwich and handmade paper lamps.

River lights are a new trend in lanterns. They are standing lanterns made from coloured glass and brass that can be used to decorate any surface, be it a coffee table or a verandah. A row of river lights can be quite charming focus point.

 Quick tip: You could even try Arabian brass lanterns with decorative holes in it. Try either wax candles or tiny light bulbs inside them and watch the soft coloured glow spread around your home!

SCENTED CANDLES

The soft glow of candles is enough to make you feel warm inside. But imagine the added aroma of vanilla or lavender filling the air. Heavenly, isn't it? 

You can try pillar candles, candles carved in unique shapes or ones with printed motifs on them too. You could use ornate candle stands or holders to display them.

Depending on your budget, you can pick candles from high-end stores like The Faraway Tree or more economical ones like Lifestyle or Home Stop.

 STARRY ATTRACTIONS

 Rice lights, though not a very traditional idea, are a great way to decorate window grills. You could even drape them like a valance at the top of your doorway if you are not using garlands. Rice lights are available at any store that has party decorations.

If you have tall potted plants in your balcony or even at the entrance to your home, try wrapping a small string of lights around them. It will add that festive glam to your surroundings.

Special: 'On Diwali, I feel my Indianness'

Aseem Chhabra relishes celebrating his otherness during the festival.

A friend once told me that on Diwali  day we should keep at least one light on at home. Goddess Laxmi can then find her way into our home -- even an apartment in New York City. I try and remember to do so each year, although one Diwali, I forgot and regretted it as I rode the New York subway into Manhattan, heading for a long day of work. It would have been very inconvenient to go back home just to keep a light on in my living room!



Our Diwalis in the United States are so different than what I remember of my childhood days in Delhi-- the city decorated with lights, sweet shops stacked up for large customer demands, visits to family members to wish them and exchange sweets, the diyas at night, the sounds and smells of fire crackers and the Laxmi Puja, topped with a delicious vegetarian meal. My grandmother was very particular that no meat would be cooked in our house on Diwali. Also, she did not encourage the consumption of alcohol that night.



Having spent more than half my life in the US, I have passed through Diwalis in New York City. But each time there is a substantial effort made to recreate some part of that large Diwali experience that my friends and I remember from our childhood. We gather at each other's homes -- eat, drink (even alcohol), listen to old Bollywood songs and wish each other Happy Diwali. We essentially need that space where we can acknowledge that we are also Indians.


Otherwise a Diwali day looks no different than any other day -- well, with one difference: a few years ago, the New York City Council passed a legislation suspending alternate side parking rules on Diwali day, just like the way it is for other Jewish and Christian religious holidays. Unlike Jewish people, Hindus are not barred from operating vehicles and other mechanical objects on their religious holidays. But getting the City Council to suspend alternate side parking rules for a day is a big thing and a clear sign that we as a community have arrived!

So, this is what I mostly recall from a regular Diwali day in New York City -- especially from the years I worked on the business side of publishing companies. After I would get to work, I would walk up to a colleague and say, 'Wish me Happy Diwali!' The colleague would wish me, and I would sit down and explain the significance of Diwali -- a brief narrative of the mythological story behind the festival, and the fact that in some communities it is considered the start of a new year.

My American colleagues were always curious about my background, my accent, the India n foods I liked, my interest in Bollywood films and the fact that I would take annual trips to India to visit my family. But seating one of them down and giving a brief discourse on Diwali would feel like a forced experience. Yet it was my way of saying, 'I live in the US. I pay taxes and vote. But I have my own identity and I want the America around me to recognise it. I am not going to hide behind a false veil of becoming an entirely assimilated Americanised person. My Indianness is there for everyone to see and Diwali is or certainly was an important part of it.'

On normal days, I do things that most New Yorkers do -- wake up, eat breakfast, head to work or write from home, meet people, watch Hollywood movies and American sitcoms, discuss politics and sports. But on Diwali day I start to feel my Indianness, my otherness.

Fortunately, New York and most New Yorkers allow us to be what we want to be. It is a city packed with immigrants from every nationality, representing practically all of the world's ethnicities, where parades mark each community's heritage or national day. I like the idea of the big Diwali Mela that is held at the South Street Seaport. It is the brown desis' efforts to celebrate our otherness and our Indian heritage on a grand scale. The fair ends with a fireworks display on the East River. Otherwise, the dances set to Bollywood songs, elephant rides for kids, the henna and the food stalls -- none of that have anything to do with Diwali.
As immigrants we had many different reasons to leave our homeland. But we are blessed that our new home does not demand of us to give up all that defined us. And marking Diwali is one small way for me to remind myself who I was before I came to the US.

Aseem Chhabra lives in New York.

oddly India

 Here's a collection of some odd images from across India.

 


A pet monkey rides on a recovery truck in Kolkata. The symbol reads "Evil eye bearers, may your face be blackened".











 A tribal girl from Tamil Nadu's tribal community of Narikkorava sits on a pavement with her pet bird Quail in Chennai











A photographer takes a picture of a monkey accompanying a Hindu holyman, outside a base camp for the pilgrimage to the cave of Amarnath, in Jammu.

 Villagers solemnise a frog marriage at Madhyaboragari village, about 85 km east of Siliguri, West Bengal. The frog marriage is a traditional ritual observed by the rural folk to appease the gods to bring in rain and ensure a good harvest.

Stuffed toys are arranged on a parked car as a vendor waits for customers in Chennai

Manoharan, alias Snake Manu, passes two tree snakes through his nostrils in Chennai

 Artistes from Rajasthan perform stunts on their motorbike on the walls of a "well of death" at a fair in Srinagar. The performers earn their livelihood by performing dare-devil stunts by driving their bikes and cars on the walls of the "well of death" and attract a large number of spectators from all walks of life.

Priests sit inside barrels containing water as they perform special prayers in order to appease Varun, the Hindu rain god, in a temple in Mumbai