Remember that miser from our school stories? He was so stingy, I am sure he dreaded Diwali. Festivals are fun, but wallet suckers too, aren’t they?
Well, I had one that was fun… and wallet-friendly!
During Diwali 2021, I was in Goa and had no plans to celebrate. When you give up your only source of livelihood in search of another that you have no idea about, the first thing you do is delete festive celebrations from your life.
But, two days after my mother reminded me of how I had forgotten my roots by choosing to live in another state that’s branded as a place for spoilt, disgraceful people by the parental community, she asked me to book their tickets to Goa.
So my mother, sister, brother and I were going to celebrate the grand festival of lights in grand togetherness, where four noisy people were crammed in one room house that had kitchen in one corner and balcony in the other. My ‘home’ wasn’t even made of four solid walls; two of them were large glass windows.
Don’t get me wrong. I LOVED my Palolem house. But it was not meant for 4 dolby speakers to live together.
Two evenings before Diwali, My Spanish neighbour showed us her Sari that she was planning to wear for Diwali. She fired up the Indianness in me that was in deep slumber due to my thin wallet.
So my other Indian neighbour and I went out for limited-budget Diwali Shopping in the small market of South Goa.
I didn’t have any festive or ‘family’ type decent clothes since I was living alone in Goa. So I was ecstatic to find a nauvari (9 yards Saari ) at a rate lesser than a faded tshirt in Pune.
I then bought a couple of diyas and oil in partnership with my neighbour. We got fancy lights for our grand galleries that lit up the entire balcony for less than half the usual price – that’s upside of living in a small town.
There’s no Diwali without Faraal (sweets). Mum had already bought ‘chakli’ from Pune. She decided to make ‘besan ladoos’ in my ‘survival only’ kitchen that would allow only one person at once. Given my aversion to spices, I hardly had any more ingredients than I needed to survive. I had one pan in good health and one kadhai that would make a ‘ffffat’ sound on the stove if left for more than a minute. My mother has a kitchen the size of 3 Mumbai flats, double packets of each type of spice, and more storage boxes than the population of Goa.
Besan laddoos seemed an impossible idea to me but I gave her the freedom she rightfully deserved in my extremely restricted home. After my shopping spree, I returned home to exactly 14 sparkling and shining besan laddoos – One laddoo as a pat on Lord Ram’s back for surviving each year of his vanvaas.
Of all the Diwali faraal items, I hate laddoos. Just to applaud the efforts of making modern-age laddoos in a stone-age set-up, I ate one… I don’t know the reference parameters against which you can judge a ladoo, but that was one great-tasting sphere of a sweet I ever had. Even Lord Ram would have applauded my mum’s laddoos.
I fusioned my nauvari with whatever accessories I had. I was sari-clad, but not traditional and not Western, either. Mum decided to ignore the hideousness of my self-invented fashion. Thank God Dad wasn’t with us.
There was a Laxmi puja party at a cafe, so we all went there and had a beer instead of kheer or something sweet to go with our poverty-stricken laddoos. To tell you the truth, our laddoos didn’t look so poor, given how lavishly Mum had used the only ingredient I could provide in abundance – ghee.
We friends came home and planned a dinner because who sleeps on a Diwali day with beer and sandwiches in their tummy? With barely good cooking skills, my friend and I fried some happy, fluffy puris to go with the noon’s leftover aaloo sabzi and feasted upon it, in our lit balconies.
On Narakchaturdashi, my siblings, mom and I rode to the forest of Netravali and paid tolls to at least 200 Narkasurs on our way home. We spent the entire Padwa day lounging on the secluded beach of Kakolem, drinking coconut water (yes, water. Mum was with us.) and watching the sea waves crash on every 5th Mississippi.
This globally integrated Diwali under Rs. 750 only, was way too different and unconventional. And the best part – no one had to work too hard! Mum made laddoos because cooking with the bare minimum utilities challenged her passion for cooking. I had to clean only one room and one balcony, so it was fun. The sister and the brother had entire beaches to themselves to fool around, so no worries there. Dad wasn’t with us, so nobody had to follow impossible rules out of respect. It was the best Diwali I ever had, even though it was a BPL (below poverty line) celebration.
Moral of the story? Besan Laddoos taste better when they get done in under 20 mins in a nomadic kitchen with just one decorative raisin popping up.
