A Holly Jolly Diwali

by Sonya Lalli

  “Question,” I said, thinking about what would best fit the occasion. “I know Diwali is ‘the Festival of Lights’ and all, but what exactly are we celebrating?”

  “Me, of course.” Diya pouted her lips at the mirror. “You know that essentially diya means ‘light’ in English?”

  I nodded. My vocabulary was poor, but that word I knew.

  “So there you go. It is the Festival of Diya.” She winked at herself in the mirror. “It is the festival of me!”

  CHAPTER 6

  In the end, I went with the sari after watching Diya gush at the detailed gold-and-saffron-colored embroidery. After everyone was ready, we gathered in the mandir just off the main room, and Auntie Jo invited me to join in on Lakshmi Pooja. She explained it was a Hindu ritual performed on Diwali that invited the goddess into their homes to bless their family with prosperity, peace, and happiness. I happily agreed and enjoyed witnessing the custom. After, I asked her about the origin of Diwali, and as we rushed out the door, she quickly told me the festival also celebrated the return of Lord Rama from exile after fourteen years. I was curious to hear more, but as we were already late for the party, I made a note to follow up later.

  Auntie and Uncle Jo didn’t plan on staying at the Diwali party very long, so Diya and I took our own car. We left just after dusk, and by then, the city was lighting up with firecrackers and sparklers, lanterns, string lights, and floral garlands hanging from doorways, windows, and shop fronts.

  I was in awe. I loved Diwali, but I’d never seen it like this. It was in the air we were breathing, permeating everyone it touched with music and laughter and something I even found vaguely spiritual. People were spilling out onto the streets, dressed in vibrant colors, and there were markets everywhere, hawker stands and bazaars selling everything from clothing to paan to sweet burfi of every kind and color imaginable.

  The India I’d arrived at this morning had me feeling queasy, uncertain about the world and my place in it, but the last remnants of my unhappy mood cleared as Diya and I blared India’s Top 40 music and cruised down Marine Drive toward the party.

  It was already in full swing when we arrived at a hotel in South Mumbai. There were diya everywhere, covering every free surface with flickers of warm light, and fairy lights stretched across the ceiling every which way. There was a stage with live music and, behind that, a double doorway leading to a gorgeous terrace. I snuck a peek outside. Artists had decorated vast swaths of the ground with rangoli, powders of every color sprinkled into vibrant murals of peacocks and mandala, lotus flowers and diya. Knowing she would appreciate the craft, I surreptitiously took a few photos and texted them to Jasmine, who responded thirty seconds later with ten starstruck emojis.

  Diya and I tracked down her parents by the bar, and they introduced us to the hosts, their close friends. I thanked them for letting me tag along and gave them a box of Mom’s pinni before Diya dragged me away to grab glasses of prosecco and do the “rounds.”

  Over the next hour, Diya introduced me to a barrage of aunties and uncles in her Mumbai community. When Diya’s fiancé, Mihir, arrived, who I hadn’t seen since our college graduation, we went outside to the terrace to hang out with their friends.

  In very quick succession, I met the bridesmaids, six girls who grew up with Diya here in Mumbai and most of whom still lived in the city. (Diya introduced me to them as the honorary bridesmaid, as she sweetly said I would have been included if she’d known I was able to come.) Then there were the groomsmen, Mihir’s friends, and after that came the spouses. The husbands, wives, partners, boyfriends, and girlfriends of the aforementioned.

  I helped myself to my second glass of prosecco even though we hadn’t eaten yet, because it was a bit overwhelming meeting such a big group. I couldn’t keep track of anyone’s name except Masooma, who was the most welcoming of the bunch and lessened the blow of being the outcast with such a tight-knit group of people. I didn’t begrudge any of them—I’m sure Diya would feel equally left out if, one day, she was required to hang out solely with my group of school friends—but still, it made me realize that I wouldn’t really know anyone at the wedding except the two people who’d be busy getting married. None of our mutual college friends from Seattle were able to come.

  Masooma pulled up a chair next to me during dinner. She told me that she and her husband, Tahir, were Muslim, but they enjoyed celebrating Diwali in the same secular way many of us who weren’t Christian enjoyed Christmas. Quickly, I discovered Masooma and I had a lot in common. She worked in business development for a tech company here in India, and I had a great time talking to her about the industry, Mumbai, and our love for our zany, spectacular mutual friend Diya.

  I was reluctant to leave the conversation, but my bladder was about to burst, so I excused myself shortly after we’d finished eating. I practically ran to the restroom, but luckily, there was only one auntie in there and nobody ahead of me in line.

  After, while drying my hands, I smiled at the auntie, who was still there fixing her lipstick in front of the mirror. She was small and round, and kept looking over at me with a sour expression on her face.

  “Hello.” I made eye contact with her and smiled brightly. “Are you having a nice evening?”

  She smacked her lips together, turning to me. “You are Diya’s American friend?”

  “That’s me. I’m Niki.” I smiled again. “It’s nice to meet you, Auntie.”

  “Your parents are from India or Pakistan?”

  I hesitated. Technically, they were from both. “I’m Punjabi. My dad grew up near Amritsar, and my mom—”

  “What is your surname?”

  “Randhawa.”

  “Ah.” She paused. “Your family is . . . Jat.”

  My jaw stiffened. She didn’t say it like a question but a statement. A proclamation of what my family name said about our caste.

  “You are staying on how many weeks?” she asked.

  “Three,” I said stiffly.

  “Have nice time.” She clutched my wrist, brushing past me, but not before she inspected me from top to toe. “Be advised. You must cover yourself properly in this country. The sun is very bright, nah?”

  “I . . .” I stammered, staring after her as she walked away from me. I was enraged. Humiliated. And I stepped forward, ready to tell this sour-faced auntie how backward she was for making a dig at my dark complexion, for asking about my family’s lineage, for feeding into a colorist, casteist, staggeringly broken system.

  But when I opened my mouth to say something, I couldn’t get a word out. Not even a grunt. This woman was a friend of Diya’s parents. She was an auntie.

  And even though I’d never felt that Indian, I was Indian enough to know that I had to respect her.

  CHAPTER 7

  Fifteen years ago

  Jasmine . . .” Dad turned around from the passenger seat. “No drinking tonight. Aacha?”

  Jasmine scoffed. “Obviously.”

  Mom eyed her in the rearview mirror. “We. Are. Serious.”

  Usually, I was able to duck out of the room whenever tensions ran high, but unless I wanted to throw myself out of a moving vehicle, I was stuck here.

  The silence was deafening, and I shifted uncomfortably in the backseat. Mom had forced me to wear an embroidered lengha, and although it was pretty enough and didn’t look secondhand, the fabric made my skin itch. I unbuttoned my coat, scratching at my sides where the loose threads prickled me the most. It felt like spiders were having a party in there.

  “Niki,” Mom snapped. “Stop scratching yourself. Are you a girl or an ape?”

  I tried not to roll my eyes as I withdrew my hand. “Technically, I think I’m both?”

  “Have you heard us, Jasmine?” Dad warned, ignoring me and my joke. “Have you understood? You must be on your best behavior.”

  Jasmine rolled her head away from me until her for
ehead was flush against the window. A beat later, she replied, “Understood.”

  Jasmine had missed her curfew the weekend before and spent the next morning barfing into the toilet, so needless to say, Mom and Dad were furious with her. All week, Jasmine hadn’t been allowed to hang out with her friends and was ordered to come straight home after school, which meant I had to come straight home from school, too. She wasn’t allowed to use the phone or computer and had been tasked with doing the dinner dishes and the whole family’s laundry. I was excited to have my chore duties reduced until Jasmine threw all my clothes into the dryer and shrank my favorite pair of pajama pants.

  Oh, and I forgot to mention the lectures. Every night before bed, Mom and Dad had sat both of us down on the couch and gone off about the ways of the world, spending hours bemoaning and monologuing and pleading about things that could really be boiled down into three simple points.

  Jasmine and I were too American.

  Jasmine and I had it too easy.

  Jasmine and I needed to be good Indian daughters.

  Why I had to sit through these sessions was beyond me. Yes, like Jasmine, I’d never been to India, and in Dad’s words “had never learned how hard life could be working on the family farm,” but I was a good Indian daughter. I’d never disobeyed them. I’d never not done exactly as they said. Yet here I was, lumped in with my rebellious, selfish older sister.

  We arrived at the banquet hall, late as usual, and were immediately ushered to our tables. I had expected to be split up from Mom and Dad, who were led to a table with other couples their age, but I was disappointed to not even be sitting with Jasmine, who blatantly swung by the open bar on the way to her seat at the “older kids” table. I wondered if Mom and Dad saw her. In that moment, I wondered if I hated Jasmine or was in awe of her.

  The speeches started, and the evening droned on, and on, and on. Until the dancing started, wedding receptions were always a snooze fest, and I passed the hours whispering with the other girls at my table. Well, I more so listened to the other girls. They were talking about Bollywood movies, and I had nothing to contribute.

  “Niki?” someone said after a while. I sat up straight, having zoned out on the conversation.

  “Sorry . . .” I stammered. It was Radhi speaking. She was also thirteen years old but went to a different school, so I only ever saw her at Indian functions. “What did you say?”

  “Have you seen Deewane Huye Paagal?”

  “Not yet.” I cleared my throat; I’d never even heard of it. “But I’ve been meaning to. Who’s in it again?”

  “Shahid Kapoor. Oh my god—he is so good looking.” Radhi paused. “Do you like him? Who’s your favorite actor?”

  I glanced around the table. All the girls were waiting for my answer, trying to include me in a conversation I had no interest being in. I knew most of them, sort of, but I didn’t exactly fit in with this crowd. They all lived within a stone’s throw from the gurdwara, went to Punjabi school twice a week, and hung out together afterward at one another’s houses—watching Bollywood movies or Punjabi dramas, or practicing bhangra dances they made up and performed at folk festivals and celebrations.

  I knew this because they used to invite me along, and I’d joined them a few times, but the gurdwara was thirty minutes away by car and seventy-five minutes by bus, and Mom and Dad didn’t have time to drive me there, let alone pray themselves. Mom’s employer paid double wages on Sunday, and so she always volunteered for those shifts, and Dad had never really been a religious man. As a family, we attended gurdwara only for the most auspicious occasions. Weddings and funerals. Or when Dadima, Dad’s mother, who visited once a year from Punjab, was in town and forced us to go.

  “My favorite actor is . . .” I trailed off, as Orlando Bloom came to mind. I’d seen The Lord of the Rings four times since it came out.

  “Shah Rukh Khan,” I said finally.

  “Shah Rukh?” Radhi narrowed her eyes. “Really?”

  I kicked myself. I should have known better. Picking Shah Rukh as my favorite actor would be like if I picked Brad Pitt with my white friends at school. Shah Rukh was too obvious a choice because he was everybody’s favorite.

  He was pretty much the most famous man in India.

  Our table was one of the last to be called to the buffet. I was starving and piled my plate high with aloo mataar, raita, saag paneer, daal, chicken curry, and naan, the gold standard of wedding dinners in our community. I returned to my seat, and for the first time all evening, I felt like I was on the same page as the Punjabi girls. Even though our lives were totally different, and I didn’t have anything in common with them, every night we all ate the same things for dinner.

  “What do they put in Indian food?” Radhi exclaimed suddenly. “It’s so yummy. Is it crack?”

  “It’s the ajwain,” I blurted proudly, before anyone else could come up with the answer. “And dhaniya and jeera of course.”

  Two of the girls across the table giggled. My shoulders slumped.

  “What?” I asked, suddenly doubting my answer. It was those three ingredients—carom seeds, ground coriander, and cumin—that made the cuisine so distinctive, right? Wasn’t that what Mom put in basically every dish?

  “Uh,” one girl answered. “That’s not how you say jeera.”

  I squirmed. “Jee-rdaa?”

  The girl shook her head, pressing a hand over her grin.

  “Jee-rdhaa,” I said again, harder on the second syllable, but it just made the girls laugh even more.

  “You sound like you’re speaking Spanish or something,” another one said. “That’s not Punjabi.”

  My cheeks heated up as I glanced over at Radhi for backup, but she, too, was in stitches. She and all the other Punjabi girls, the more Indian girls, were laughing at me.

  My chest tightened, and I felt the tears forming at the corners of my eyes. I blinked, swallowing hard, and refused to cry. To embarrass myself any further.

  Luckily, Radhi changed the subject, and the conversation carried on, but inside I was fuming.

  If Mom and Dad didn’t want their daughters to be so freaking “American,” then why hadn’t they taught us to speak Punjabi properly? Why hadn’t they rented a house closer to the gurdwara so they could physically be part of their diaspora community? Why did they never play the music or movies that showed us where we came from?

  If Mom and Dad wanted us to be good Indian daughters, then hell, why had they even left India?

  CHAPTER 8

  The tears started to fall as soon as the auntie left the restroom. Thank god no one else was nearby. Thank god Diya’s eye shadow was waterproof.

  I flopped down on a velvety fainting couch near the sinks, patting my eyes delicately with tissue so my makeup wouldn’t run.

  Why was I so upset? Why did I give a flying fuck what that auntie thought of me? Although I’d had insecurities when I was a teenager and used to hide from the sun, I’d since learned to love the deep tone of my skin. And I was proud of my family history, my agrarian roots. The caste system was illegal and backward; who even cared anymore if Jat was the label attached to my family?

  I sank deeper into the couch, my head falling into my hands. It felt heavy, like a bag of wet sand. Was the jet lag making it worse?

  “Beti,” someone said suddenly. “What is the matter?”

  The voice was soothing and filled with so much concern that when I opened my eyes, I thought I’d see Mom. But of course it wasn’t her. It was another woman, the silhouette of an angel backlit in the doorway, and I tried to get a better look at her as she rushed to my side. Her hair was cropped short at her chin in a salt-and-pepper bob, and she had an elegant maroon sari draped around her voluptuous figure. She was anywhere from forty to sixty, and one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen in my entire life.

  “Here,” she said, taking t
he tissues from me. “I will help.”

  We sat together in silence as she gently patted my face. After, she stuffed the tissues in her blouse and cupped my face in her hands.

  “Now you are perfect,” she said, beaming.

  “Thanks . . .” I snorted, withdrawing from her grasp.

  “You don’t have to tell me what’s wrong. But I am sitting here a moment longer regardless.”

  She turned away from me and started rummaging through her purse. Her gold-toned bag was very similar to the one Mom had lent me, which I’d left in the glovebox of Diya’s car.

  “Thank you,” I repeated, remembering myself. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Why are you sorry?” she said, her eyes still down. She opened a small tube of lotion and squirted some on her palms. “Would you like some? I am Aasha, by the way.”

  “Niki,” I replied. “It’s nice to meet you, Auntie. And sure. Thank you, I’d love some.”

  “Ah. You are Diya’s friend.” She squeezed some of the hand cream onto my palm. “I thought it might be you. Would you like me to fetch her?”

  “No,” I said, a little too loudly. It was the Festival of Diya, and I didn’t want to ruin her night. “I mean. No. But thanks. I’m OK.”

  Aasha Auntie looked at me skeptically, the same way Mom would if I told her something wasn’t wrong when it clearly was. I sighed and reluctantly told her about the incident.

  “Which lady was this?” she asked, her voice wavering. I could tell the story genuinely troubled her, and so I described the sour-faced woman. Aasha Auntie nodded in recognition.

  “Ignore her. She is a very ignorant person.” Auntie tutted. “No wonder her children secretly go to therapy.”

  “I can usually ignore people like that,” I said tentatively. “I guess I just wasn’t expecting to hear it.”