Light it up!

It is almost Diwali – in fact, the five-day long festival starts today. I like it, especially with the small lights dancing in windows all over the city. When they are electric lights, they are steady, constant, sometimes ‘running’ along the strings in a kind of disco effect. When they are oil-fired, there is a different and almost ageless beauty about them, as if they exist in some parallel world where life is slower and softer, with elephants instead of taxicabs and women in gorgeous silks and long, jasmine-scented hair. And even as the disco lights go on, sparking the nights with their ceaseless and syncopated rhythm of on-off-on-off, the darkened sky, the fireworks begin. From the shattering sounds of bombs blasting echoes against skyrises to the flash of rockets firing towards the treetops to the spray of colour that illuminates the horizon…it’s all about celebration, sound, light and prayer to invite in the gods and drive out evil.

And the lamp sellers are out in force all over the place. This morning, wandering through the market a few blocks from home, I saw small pottery diyas in so many different shapes and sizes. From the tiniest of cups to cradle a little oil and a wick to an elaborate configuration of seven lamps held together by a decorative peacock, it was all available on the sidewalk, the road, on small carts and on the steps of a large department store. From the plainest base terracotta to vividly painted patterns in red, green, yellow, pink, even fluorescent lime and purple…name it and you could match your lamps to anything – your eyes, your carpets, your paintwork, your deepest fantasies. Just ask and you shall find.

My favourite lamps have always been the purely traditional. The brass stem that branches into curves that support small lamps, the decorative bird or busty woman who stands at the very top, the floral carvings along the base, the burst of light as all the wicks are lit – all this comes from my roots as an Indian, a South Indian at that, cultured for generations in a bath of dance, music, prayer, ritual and the oil lamps that illuminate it all. But along the way I have also collected some lights that are in no way traditional. Blown glass cups to hold oil with a narrow stem to support the wick, curved silver ending in a bowl touched by gold where the flame burns steady, a tiny set of steps with an even tinier Ganesha peeking into the light, a small Jewish clay lamp, ball lamps that are a nightmare to clean, wee copper indentations that hold oil and wick…there are a few I like, a few I treasure and one or two that mean more than I can express in mere words. They are all now part of my heritage, my history, my legacy. And what make up the world of light that I always wish to be mine.