One year back on the occasion of Diwali, I was relaxing in my countryside home, listening to old Hindi songs on vinyl records, and now I’m freezing up in Delhi winter, feeling all the more nostalgic for my culture. To give a background check on things, I’m from Maharashtra, and currently I’m in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi about 1500 km away from home. I have to say this, this is the first Diwali I’m spending away from home and it is completely different feeling altogether. So it is obligatory for me to write a nostalgic post about celebrating Diwali away from home. I would not say celebrating but living through Diwali in a hostel.
All our adventures and journeys in the end lead to one destination- HOME!
Diwali for all Indians is like Christmas time, everybody is home, relatives and close friends visit you and you visit them, everybody enjoys sweet delicacies at each other’s houses. But for me, all I remember about spending Diwali last year, was writing an environmental-pro post on why we shouldn’t burst fire crackers and damage our own health as well as other’s sanity. Looking back at that post this year away from home, I feel different, I feel sad that I’m not with my family, and moreover I will let my anti-cracker stance slide for the moment, just for the sake of my argument. For the people of state, this festival is celebrated differently and its importance is more than any other festival, it is celebrated with much zeal and gusto.
I cherish this particular quote by William Trevor!
Looking at the culture of Delhi, rather looking at how Diwali is celebrated at Delhi, I feel like I’m not even in India, I feel like I’m displaced away from home, these celebrations in the university campus make me feel more displaced and long harder for my state and its people. Celebration in the campus should make Diwali feel homely for all outstation students, rather it alienates me more, and makes me miss my family my mom and dad back home. Today on the first day of Diwali, I suddenly realize that I’m indeed away from home , and at the same time it makes this university campus more foreign and different than usual. On regular days, I don’t feel like I’m away from home, I do know that my home is away from me, but just that I have friends here, and it reduces my longing for home to some extent. I understand today what it feels to be displaced from home and how detachment feels like.
I truly understand what it means by,
” You don’t know what you got, until its gone”
Precisely! 😉
Wish you all a happy, safe and prosperous Diwali! 🙂
P.S I’m sorry that I broke my promise for posting more articles than usual, but these days I have being caught up with more study and less free time, please forgive me for that. 🙂 😛
a journey to the greyish soul 
Why was it different in the university.
Your exams over right? Back home?
Well it was different as my family was not around, I had friends but still felt a bit lonely, and that instigated me to write this particular piece. My exams were far away and could only go back in 2 months or so.