Diwali dilemma
“Can you come down Surbhi? It’s 6pm already, we need to light diyas”, my mother yelled from the kitchen.
I paused the TV show I was binging carelessly and put on a Kurta-Salwar, and rushed down the stairs almost tripping on my dangling Dupatta.
We lit the diyas, put kunkum-chawal on them, sang an aarti. After placing a few in our rooms and kitchen, I stepped outside.
Carefully placing them in every nook and corner ensuring no place remained in dark. I noticed my neighbours have already kept theirs. We were slightly behind them this time. There’s always an unsaid competition amongst us on who lights them first. As a kid I always rushed my mother in her pooja. I got an adrenaline rush whenever we were the first ones to accomplish the said job but a little disappointed when someone beat us to it.
As I was looking at the brightly lit buildings in the neighborhood with fairy lights shining everywhere like little stars on them, I noticed a woman sitting outside our house.
At first glance, I thought she might be a neighbour who came outside to enjoy the view but on looking closely I realised she was a stranger.
“Maybe she is a passerby, got tired hence chose to rest”, my mother said
We soon forgot about her amidst the Diwali chores.
An hour later, we heard loud sobbing noises. It was her, she was murmuring or cursing, difficult to comprehend as it was in her native language.
Pretty soon a young boy, his son’s age showed up trying to console her. Later when a man in the motorbike arrived, her moans increased. The man and the woman started arguing in a voice loud enough to let the entire street know of their business. As he tried to accelerate his bike to leave, the young boy jumped in front of the bike pleading to stay.
I saw everything from my room’s balcony upstairs trying to make sense of it at all.
This was clearly a family dispute. I thought of the woman who sat there wailing, looking helpless.
Was that man her husband who said those unspeakable things and left her all by herself.
How did she end up here, did she live or work close by? Is she going to be ok?
I could have intervened or said something or even offered her a glass of water but I simply asked her to go away as it’s considered a bad omen to cry on such an auspicious day brings bad luck.
