Yesterday I was amazed at the scale of Diwali celebration in Harrow. I knew that Harrow was the region populated with residents of different backgrounds including Indians but I had no idea that the Indian community was so vast there. Or at least it seemed so judging by how easily Harrow transformed for a day from being a suburbian London region to a place filled to the brim with an atmosphere of one of the biggest Indian national holidays.
After that it was by no means possible to stay indoors any longer. So I grabbed my cell phone, ran out of the campus and headed to the main street. Fireworks seemed to move around the region like comets. Wherever I went I could see them, hear them and even smell them (in some side streets you could sense a cloud of smoke after the squad of fireworks was over). Also some houses were festively decorated with lanterns. Several Indian restaurants I had spotted before were filling with laughing and chatting people. A couple of households in one of the side streets seemed to be especially enjoying the party, with fireworks going off one after another, almost making up for daylight.
I heard my cell phone ringing and shrugged away my reverie. It was my family asking me how I was doing. I smiled into the phone and said it was OK, and started walking back home. And the strong positive vibe of the Harrow streets on that day, the persistent feeling of being a part of the holiday followed me all the way to the campus. The celebration went on till late at night and continued on the following day...
I was sulking in my room when the party literally came to me: from my dorm window I saw the sky explode in multi-coloured fans, then after some time one more blast, and then again and again until the canonade of fireworks started booming in short regular intervals painting the dark sky in bright Disney-like colours.
After that it was by no means possible to stay indoors any longer. So I grabbed my cell phone, ran out of the campus and headed to the main street. Fireworks seemed to move around the region like comets. Wherever I went I could see them, hear them and even smell them (in some side streets you could sense a cloud of smoke after the squad of fireworks was over). Also some houses were festively decorated with lanterns. Several Indian restaurants I had spotted before were filling with laughing and chatting people. A couple of households in one of the side streets seemed to be especially enjoying the party, with fireworks going off one after another, almost making up for daylight.
I stopped for a moment mesmerized with a view, feeling a bit nostalgic and philosophic. It was such a good concept, I thought, Festival of Lights... I don't know much about the holiday only that in a spiritual sense it stands for finding the Inner Light, victory of the good over the evil in an individual (please correct me if I get it wrong). And even if I am not able to understand profoundly the religious aspect of the holiday, I still don't feel an outsider to it.
To my mind, there are certain events of this kind that you can relate to even without being a part of the culture that created it, and being half-Indian I certainly felt a part of it to a certain extent. There are days like this during the year such as Christmas, Diwali. The warm cosy atmosphere of such holidays spreads all around the place, it's engaging and contagious.
The concept of the holiday
And I also love the very idea of fighting the Inner Darkness and finding a way to the Inner Light within one's soul. It's this fragile balance within a personality, this insecure position of the scale between righteousness and sinfulness that has troubled poets and philosophers' minds for so many years. Like Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky said in "The Brothers Karamazov", "The Devil struggles with God, and the field of battle is the hearts of men".
Sometimes one has to fight the Inner Darkness armed only with a torch of Hope. Sometimes one finds oneself in a dark and dreary tunnel of despair and loneliness, and as fatigue sweeps over one feels like stopping, unable and unwilling to go any further. But then there appears that ray of light at the very end of the tunnel, it's so faint and distant but one knows that one has to keep on walking because there is someone who's watching their every step, someone who doesn't want them to get lost in the dark. And sometimes, the light is too strong for aching eyes, it's blinding and unforgiving, and one is comfortable with squeezing one's eyes shut and hiding from reality but then one can't spend one's life with one's eyes closed, closed to the beauty around you and the pain around you...
I heard my cell phone ringing and shrugged away my reverie. It was my family asking me how I was doing. I smiled into the phone and said it was OK, and started walking back home. And the strong positive vibe of the Harrow streets on that day, the persistent feeling of being a part of the holiday followed me all the way to the campus. The celebration went on till late at night and continued on the following day...
