Diwali Deco

Some windows across in the other building are all decked up with lights.

For the last two days, cartloads of garbage is finding its way out from homes, in huge shopping covers. My studio too has gone through its share of Diwali cleaning. Some housewives have bought fancy lamps in advance. Others have rushed to buy some gold for Dhanteras.

The shopping centre at Gokuldham in my suburb is so bedazzled with lights, that you want to grab those lovely LEDs hanging like grapes from shops. Paper lanterns, crackers and sweets have piled up at shops and are getting sold out too. At the Oberoi mall, a giant LED lantern hangs precariously from the ceiling, over the mall's central court.

Every product in town has the Diwali Dhamaka tag to it! Home-maker friends of mine scour the newspapers, not for news, but ads and exchange offers. It is about that long overdue washing machine, or a tea table, or still better, a bedroom set. TV ads, LCD packages. Clothes. Gold...the list goes on endlessly.

With the market promising to pick up and that eager anticipation of future money in the household, families I know are hoping they buy up goods in advance. Of course, their shopping spree includes a little bit of expenditure on worship paraphernalia too. Goddess Lakshmi needs to be kept happy after all, while we humans convince ourselves that she means the home appliance we are buying up, she means the clothes we wear.

As for me, I love watching those umpteen paper lanterns that light up not just shops, but entire streets and shopping arcades before they find way to some apartment window. I must confess the temptation to buy them up is too hard to resist for me too. But that `eco-friendly' bell rings in my head just in time.

Something about these lamps irritated me when on my mini-shopping spree a few hours back. Chinese style lanterns with prints of Goddess Lakshmi. Agreed lanterns and lamps have undergone enormous design changes over the years. But considering China has swept through even the Indian God idols market, why this craze!

Probably had this God invasion and dumping of Chinese products had not happened, I'd have nurtured a different opinion. Does a Chinese citizen out there lap up anything Indian just as eagerly? Thinking aloud. Opting for those Pipli cloth lanterns from Orissa looks anyday a better idea. We're helping those artisans from our own villages and towns.

Wish I could map the route of these lanterns to check where they exactly came from!

My little deco plan is confined to a floral rangoli with earthern lamps. Made in India. Am assured completely. Can we as humans, step aside for once, from this consumerist mindset hanging over our heads? It's a festival to celebrate good over evil. Can we not keep it that way and hit ourselves less hard?

The more we consume plastic and gold in the name of the festival, the harder we're hitting at our resources. Let's shun that evil in us for a few minutes! And save some power and oil too!