Lighting up!

The biggest Hindu festival of the year is almost upon us. Diwali is the festival of light, and many of the balconies around us have been adorned with tinsel and twinkly lights. It's really beautiful.

Keir's class had a Diwali assembly on Friday. Mum and I attended, so we now know exactly why everyone lights candles and decorates their homes with sparkly lights. Many years ago there was a good old king who had a number of sons by a couple of wives. The king chose his son Ram to take over from him, which upset wife no.2, who wanted her son Bharat to inherit the crown. Wife no. 2 had something over the king, and forced him to send Ram and his wife Sita into exile in the forest for 14 years. But Bharat wasn't as conniving as his mother and went into the forest to ask Ram to return to take the crown. Ram wouldn't disobey his father and opted to stay in the forest for the 14 years, so Bharat (played by Keir) asked for Ram's sandals to take back to the palace which he put on the throne. Then Sita was kidnapped by a bad man (we knew he was a baddie, he was wearing black), Ram befriended a monkey king and Ram and the monkey king went to rescue Sita. So not much different to the Days of our Lives or the Young and the Restless really. When Ram and Sita needed to go back to reclaim the throne they could not find their way, so the people lit candles along the path to show them the way. Hindus commemorate this by lighting up their homes, eating barfi (condensed milk cooked with sugar and coated with edible silver. It's lovely, but you can make yourself sick if you eat too much), having big parties and playing lots of loud Bollywood songs. Diwali day is on Tuesday, which is also Rod and my 13th wedding anniversary. I'm led to believe there will be fireworks too that day. So kind of the Indians to put so much effort into our anniversary, don't you think?