Diwali at K

I was at IIM-K for Diwali. The students quite enthusiastically lit up the entire campus with candles, than the more traditional diyas!!! Not to be outdone, I lined up a train of candles outside A's room, having got hold of them from one of his friends! One of the candles was exasperatingly adamant. It just refused to remain stuck to the floor, falling like it was one of the proverbial nine pins. I tried all sorts of tricks; chanted mantras, evoked divine help, even threatened the measly candle; all to no avail! I even tried hoodwinking it, removing one finger at a time! It caught on to every slight movement of mine, crashing down if I so much as sighed a trifle aloud!!! It reminded me of two lines from Robert Frost's poem, Mending Wall, where the poet futilely tries to balance ill-shaped boulders, to mend a wall that has broken down!!

"...We have to use a spell to make them balance:

'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'..."

Finally, after minutes and minutes of perseverance, I came out victorious!!! It stayed, and how!!! I even got one of the students to click a picture of my artwork! <grin>

The Little Devil at the Far Right!

We then went for a stroll around the campus, and a friend (Anil) took a picture of us near the lawn.

The celebrations that had been planned at K were simple and nice. It kicked off with a traditional puja, for which a priest performed all the customary rituals that mark such festive celebrations. The puja was performed in the campus canteen, all the chairs and tables having been removed, to provide ample space for the ceremony. The students turned up in large numbers, many sitting on the floor in a semi-circle, around the priest, while some more plonked themselves on a narrow ledge that ran all along the sides of the walls of the room. The ceremony lasted a little over three quarters of an hour, with a few volunteers distributing prasad at the end of it.

The Devotees!!!

After the ceremony, it was time to satiate our growling tummies. A more than usual sumptuous dinner beckoned us, replete with yummy ice cream, which, I must say, was more than enough to satiate my tummy!!!

After the dinner, the fun began! The night sky was soon lit with the glorious lights of tons of crackers at a time! Before we knew it, every breathable inch of air was taken control of by the cacophony of thundering sounds and brilliant, fluorescent colours!!! How I wish they'd make noiseless crackers, with only colourful lights streaming out of them, to showcase their beauty! I mean, is it necessary to have these earth-shattering and eardrum-bursting decibels that I'm sure are unbearably loud for even dogs! To top it all, a few students strung together a long line with every firecracker that they could lay their hands on and ignited one end with a tiny flickering flame. The deceptively teeny weeny flicker absolutely belied the monstrous, resounding thunderclaps that erupted from the crackers, which seemed to be filled with the bomb that wreaked havoc on Hiroshima!!! A small ball of fire? even flew over to where we were cowering, with our hands firmly over our ears, and landed thonk on A's head!!! It took him completely by surprise, and I <sheepish> erupted into giggles!

The Monster in Action!!!

Lighting Up the Night Sky!

All in all, an evening I won't forget in a hurry!