It's Diwali or the Festival of Lights. During the five days, women draw beautiful images outside their homes with coloured sand, rice and grains (called rangolis) to decorate their homes and welcome the new year and visitors.
This year, I took inspiration from a wonderful person I work with who is absolutely amazing at making rangolis. His work is beautiful. I decided after seeing him make so many that I was going to try my hand at rangolis. So I did.
Off I went, practicing first outside my home. Loaded with tons of coloured sand, I thought of whose homes I should make rangolis at. Good family friends of ours live in the same city as I. They treat me like a daughter and are my family here. My uncle and aunt as I call them have two sons, no daughters and my aunt doesn't make rangolis anymore because of her health. For Diwali, I decided to visit my grandmother who lives a few hours away so I had to decline their invitation to celebrate at their house. But I wanted to do something for them. The perfect gift- the gift of colour and light for the new year.
Armed with my bags of sand, I grabbed the first bus (before sunrise) and went to their home. There I drew a rangoli with a deeva (light), flowers and sun as the sun rose on the day of Diwali. Before they were up, I was on a bus back home.
Later, I heard from my aunt about the rangoli that fell from the sky onto their patio. They had no idea where it came from and it turned out to be a beautiful surprise for them in the morning. After several years, they took had a rangoli outside their home for Diwali.
- Posted by hpotter
- Nov 9, 2006
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