To do Pooja or not to do Pooja ... that is not the question!

Technically there is no Deepavali for the family, what with my Grandpa and my Aunt (periamma) passing away last year.

When you get down to explaining it to a 5 or 8 year old, especially a five year old and go

"we don't have Deepavali pooja this year"

LO: why?

me: Because we remember your great Grandpa and I remember my aunt

Jr. : because you are sad? We are sad too when we talk of Great Grandpa!

Me : Not really. Just to remember them.

LO : But now we are sad because grandpa is now a god "AND" we don't celebrate Deepavali! (she made the "and" the punchword)

Me : hmmm.. we still get to eat the good stuff that Paati will make and you get to play with fireworks.

LO and Jr. : (all smiles) OK!

So Grandma made her usual good eats and San got us some mathaapus and we had some quiet fun for 15 minutes total in the backyard! Enough to make the kids say "that's enough. let us go back in!". The outside temperature helped with that decision.

In India this would never happen. 15 minutes of fireworks and we call it done? Never!

My brother and me would start a good 15 days before Deepavali and go on for another day or two after Deepavali was done..

Guess that was another time another place altogether... but I was there for a few minutes earlier today, transported by the smell of the smoke and the sparklers...

Jr. is still scared! Her mother and grandma defend her by saying things like "she is a docile kid" etc. etc. when I challenge her to be a little bolder and continuously frustrates me. Who knows, maybe in time she will learn to love sparklers?! The funny thing is she is scared of the initial burst when the thing catches on fire. Once it is past that point, she is happy to hold it and watch it go.

The little one needs no telling. She is like a tigress.

Couldn't keep her still for the photo!

Grandma joined in for a minute within those 15 to pose for this photo..This photo meets all ISO Grandma 9000 standards she set for me before taking the picture..

"We should know it is me, but my face,dress etc. should not be prominent" she said. "No problem, pannidalaam (that can be done)" I replied with the air of the Sathyam studio photographer who told my parents "yes that can be done" to any request they make simply so he could be done with us in those good old days!

Then the kids were down to the last few sparklers and daddy decided it was time to do some quick photo experiments..

We just set the timer and captured all the fun..

This whole plan to do the sparkler thing was about to be abandoned because daddy got called to work earlier today and we lost our internet connection at home from 2-6! We now have high speed internet though. Just choose the wrong day to upgrade I guess.. luckily things got sorted out just in time for me to return home and do this.

We had a wonderful time eating and sparkling.. we pretty much did everything except the prayer and the new clothes. With four birthdays coming in the month of November that isn't an issue either. The kids went and thanked "Kollu thatha" for watching us from above and making the evening worthwhile.

Hope you all had a wonderful Deepavali !!! We did.

.

More fun with Sparklers

Saw a photo on the school site where someone wrote I Love You with a flashlight with a dark field in the background.. It was a neat shot!

So, could not resist the idea to write I love U with sparklers in my backyard.

Here are the two tries that came out. The sparkler lasts 18 or so seconds and the shot in self timer mode starts only after a 10 second countdown. Really wish there was an option on the XTi to change timer to 2 seconds!

If you want to try this, go manual mode, try an 8 to 10 second exposure at f20 or a smaller aperture..

Spent a lot of sparklers and then realized that when I wrote I L U , it came out as U L I in the photo. So make sure you practice writing in reverse to get it right on the photograph....

.

Sparklers

Now you know all about the kid in me coming out and having fun!

Sooooooo wish that we could burst bijili vedis here. Someday, someday, we will be in Madras for Deepavali and we will show our kids the type of fun we had growing up.

After talking to relatives in India, they all said two things that are downright baffling..

1. Only my youngest cousin who is 11 and my nephew who is 3 are into bursting crackers. The rest of them are happy with the good eats and watching TV or going to the movies!

2. A box of 10 sparklers (Kambi mathaapu) costs 2$ here and it costs 3$ in Chennai!!! Velai vaasi(cost of living) has indeed risen there!

At this rate, Cupertino might become New Chennai... much like they named New York, or New Jersey a few hundred years ago..

.