The Ups and Downs

I seem to have promised a post, about diwali and deepavali and all that. I struggle routinely with this festival. The Festival of Excess, I call it. I have some reasonably good memories of it, from childhood. I think I dislike it, nevertheless. In the spirit of, if you can't like it, change it, I had some plans afoot this year to do it differently. I don't fight things. If you tell me its your tradition, I don't reason with you and ask you to change it. Instead, I go undercover and add my own things to your tradition. To ensure I can smile (and not grimace) through it. I think I was partly successful, this year.

The husband's back started acting up. We did what we usually do, and ignored it slightly and threw some Amrutanjan and so on at it. It got worse (not because of, but just, you know). Bravely we plodded through the day, my mother in law and I alternately looking at each other with big eyes and saying 'He looks like he has fever' 'Must be the pain' etc., sort of in a repeat loop. The man in question, meanwhile, slept and harassed us for our big eyes, in sequence. Doctor was visited with extreme trepidation (don't like the breed, cannot see eye to eye with them). Turned out to be a decent fellow. Then the usual MRI (the Xray, it seems, is for wimps. Real men go in for an MRI. Oh well). A gigantic film of bones and discs was promptly procured and compared against previous (five years ago; Mumbai floods, remember that? Trauma squared that was). Anyway business as usual now. Some rest and some sensible behaviour ought to fix it. And I have calmed down now and able to think somewhat straight about life, and times.

In the midst of all this (mostly in my mind) tension, things were going on. Sweet boxes to be given. Saris to be distributed. New clothes to be worn (rather reluctantly, I admit. I hate the idea of wearing new stuff and hanging out at home. I am not a home body. I like to be out of the house. Chop Chop. Plus, there was cooking to do, hate to cook wearing anything other than my trusted old shorts and the Red Tshirt that says "Legends Never Die"). The monster to be dealt with, her excitement about the crackers and flowerpots and sparklers, indulged, somewhat - a task usually outsourced to the man of the household, for several reasons. A mammoth task of cupboard cleaning I had embarked upon, to be completed. In an attempt to keep my distaste to the minimum, I might have added on too many things 'to do' on Diwali, too many things.

I should have chirpily spoken on the phone to friends and family, yes, that would have been a nice touch, but I just did not have the mind-space for it, not even to talk to mum and tell her about my new purple dress. Its been raining insanely out here. Yes, I am dimly aware of some cyclonic activity that is being talked about. Its nice, the rain. But somehow I cannot get enough sleep, because of it. I am sleeping all the time that I am not doing something, it feels like, and its still not enough, like I could lie down now and sleep. Rather strange for me as I am not even known for afternoon naps. I have not run. I am too fatigued. You know those times when you feel like you are on a treadmill and life is moving on and carrying you with it? Well, this is one such. And all I want to really do it get off and sleep.