Diwali nostalgia

Diwali is always a special time at home. A house crowded with cousins and relatives, a big bag full of crackers, and the hullabaloo and ruckus specific and special to your family. But over the past couple of years, diwali has been filled with only two things – decorations and (lots of) photos. Cousins and friends are now scattered across three continents and I miss those times. Luckily we are a family who click photos for every random thing right from a baby’s first sneeze  to hanging a new painting on the wall, so there are always hundreds of albums to browse through every time you feel nostalgic.One pic shows me holding a sparkler in a hand tightly wrapped in a handkerchief. Before you think I had an accident of any sort, that was my dad’s way of protecting my delicate hands from the flying specks of sparks. Another pic shows me lighting a match and bursting into tears (probably out of fear). I was five. Fun kid I was no? There was this one instance where we were all supposed to take a pic while waving sparklers around in the air. One cousin got a little too excited with the hand waves which resulted in burning a part of my hair. Although it was very little (a few strands) the smell took absolutely forever to leave!You could be living in a far away land with relatives in India or, like me, you could be here at ‘home’ and your family scattered all over the world. But its just not the same without them! So I compensate by pushing myself into decorating, buying, re-doing, creating, dressing up and clicking loads of pictures… to browse through for another day!p.s I din’t shop this diwali (surprise suprise), so I just threw together a festive-ish outfit and headed for lunch. Red (is always) = big festive occasion, so problem solved! ;)p.p.s An outfit shoot after almost a month! We were so excited that we ended up with too many pics. Hence the slight overload!