Chapter 9

The Festival of Lights (and Food)

“Instead of avoiding and disdaining faith, I had to find a way to include it in my life. For my children’s sake….Food seemed an innocuous way to do this.”
- Sobha Narayan, Food & Faith 

As with most festivals in India, food tends to be front and center of the celebrations. Indians are the luckiest people in the world because our diversity allows us to celebrate so many festivals through the year which in turn means we get to eat a diverse range of food too. Diwali in particular has always been more about feasting than fasting.

My parents were not religious in the sense there was no daily puja or going to temples or any kind of fasting. We had pictures of Goddess Lakshmi and Guru Nanak (Sindhis are also followers of Guru Nanak) in our house. The two main festivals that we celebrated were Guru Nanak Jayanti and Diwali.

My earliest memories of Diwali are of my father sitting at the table in the morning trying to disentangle our jumble of string lights (that were probably as old as the Ramayana themselves). My mother would bring out all the photos of Lakshmi and Guru Nanak. She would decorate the dining table with the rest of the paraphernalia like an agarbatti stand, flowers, teeka etc. After hours of working on the string lights, finally my dad would arrange them on the puja table. Simple, heartfelt, profound.

One Diwali ritual etched in my memory is my parents writing on a sheet of paper the line ‘Ram Nam Sat, Shree Wahe Guru Ji Ki Fateh’ in the Sindhi script. My sisters and I would fill our sheet with the same in English. Even though I didn’t know the significance of writing that line, I wrote it diligently without questioning. In some years the repetitiveness of this process reminded me of all the written punishments I was subject to in school when we had to write “I will behave myself in class, I will behave myself in class, I will behave myself in class…” more than a hundred times on a blackboard. Fun days!

We didn’t have a ‘special’ Diwali menu at home. It was pretty much the usual home-cooked fare. But my father would indulge us with tikki chhole, samosas, gulab jamuns and toshas, singan ji mithai (my fav) from Jhama, a famous mithai shop in Chembur. 

The charm of living in a close-knit colony was that every house was lit up with lanterns and string lights in the balconies and courtyards. There would be crackers bursting at regular intervals with complete disregard for any passersby. We would light chakris and dance on them, watching a kaleidoscope of colours at our feet. It was as if a rainbow had burst in the sky and become trapped in the lights. We would light the snake pills (remember them?) all over the verandah and watch with wide-eyed astonishment as the ‘saanp’ appeared, pouncing on them as soon as they cooled so we could crush them with our hands (not recommended today). Sparks from phooljadis would fly onto our clothes and make tiny holes everywhere. We would run for our lives to escape the cascade of light showers from the anaars. These were the days of yore, when the more crackers you had, the cooler you were.

Even after getting married, Diwali was always a special occasion. It’s a time for celebration, food, family and fun. The table always groans with a smorgasbord of dishes, from a full Marwari feast to a chaat counter, a fondue counter (weirdly enough), and a mithai counter featuring Indian sweets of all shapes, colour and sizes (typically where you can find me lurking every year).

Diwali was also my favourite festival to celebrate at both our restaurants. The staff enjoyed getting involved in decorating the place. We used to put marigold flowers on every table. We adorned the staircases with string lights, a toran at the entrance, rangoli on the steps..

…and there was always a Diwali Specials menu. We did a Chaat Specials at Food for Thought - Dal Pakwan Chaat, Ragda Pattice, Chhole Dabal, Cheeseling Bhel (yup), Chinese Bhel (yup yup). Believe it or not, our most popular dish was the Cheeseling Bhel. It was more Tex-Mex than authentically Indian, but delicious nonetheless.

At PLENTY, one Diwali season we did a Forgotten Grains Specials.  Every dish had at least one of the millets like nachni, jowar, bajra, rajgira in it. This turned out to be hugely popular with the customers especially dishes like Rajgira Fish, Nachni Cake and Buckwheat Pancakes. We went on to add Amaranth (rajgira) Crusted Fish and Nachni Almond Cake permanently to our menu.

The Mixed Grain Haleem was an absolute fail. Customers expected it to have meat in it, not so many grains. Luckily, my husband loves it, so .. “Sir ko de do.” One year he had to finish an entire entire pot of rejected Haleem over two days (I think he learned to love it in the end…I think)

Our Street Food Specials took us by surprise. We were shocked that our Dal Baati Churma Bowl sold like hot cakes (or rather hot baatis). We did the messy work of mixing the baatis, dal, chutneys and the tadka all in one bowl, and let our customers focus on the eating part.

Our Surti Anda Ghotala was another huge success. Customers who don’t eat eggs and non veg at home during Diwali were very happy eating it at the restaurant. We ended up continuing the Street Food Specials for another couple of weekends because our customers loved those dishes so much.

My kids love Diwali for all the same reasons I do. Even when they were away from home, they would send me a picture of the electric diya and little fairy lights around it with a tiny photo of ‘Gods’ in one corner of their room. It was their way of staying connected to us, their home, their roots, their childhood.

I hope parents don’t let their kids forget about the traditions associated with Diwali. These festivals allow us to own and pass on our heritage - a way to make memories. The origins and customs don’t have to ‘make sense’ in our modern worlds. But sometimes it is better to celebrate than analyse.

Light diyas, eat good food, wear pretty clothes, light a chakri or two, bond with family and friends…what more could you want?