Deepavali in our home is more like a full-scale family production than a festival. It has drama, comedy, food (lots of it), and the occasional shouting match about who has hidden the last Mysore pak.

As a child, I was always puzzled: “Why do we celebrate Deepavali?” The answers I got depended entirely on who I asked.

Paati, with a dramatic wave of her hand: “Ayyo kanna, it is the day Lord Krishna killed Narakasura! Imagine, he freed 16,000 women. These days, in one wedding hall with 500 guests, we get tired only!”

My uncle, always ready with his Ramayana knowledge: “It’s the day Rama came back to Ayodhya, don’t you know? People lit lamps everywhere. In Ayodhya, no EB power cut that day!”

My cousin, who loved the Mahabharata, “It’s the day the Pandavas returned after exile. They were welcomed grandly. We are still waiting for our welcome after coming back from Hyderabad.”

So yes, the stories varied, but in our home the ‘essence’ was simple: good food, plenty of lights, and surviving the firecracker competition with the neighbours.

Togetherness, Chennai style

Our house on Deepavali morning looks like Egmore station during peak hour. Relatives pour in with tiffin carriers full of sweets, and within ten minutes the sofa is gone under piles of silk sarees and kurta-pyjama sets.

Amidst the crowd, you can hear different shouts:

“Who has kept the TV volume so low? Increase it, I can’t hear Rajinikanth!”

“Ayyo, don’t step on the kolam, kanna!”

“Coffee? Filter coffee is ready – take fast, or else gone.”

The conversations overlap so much that even Google Translate would give up. But that chaos, that energy, that laughter – that is Deepavali in Chennai.

Kitchen Chronicles

The kitchen on Deepavali morning is a battlefield. Paati is the commander, armed with a ladle. Amma is the second-in-command, shouting orders:

“Don’t touch the murukku now, wait till neivedyam!”

“Who put sugar in the salt dabba?”

“Somebody taste this payasam, tell me if it’s too sweet. No, not you, you’ll say everything is nice!”

The cousins, of course, are busy sneaking sweets when no one is watching. One year, my little brother tried to hide boondi ladoos in his pocket, only to discover later that cotton pants and ghee are not best friends.

Lights, Action, Fireworks!

Evening comes, lamps are lit, the house looks beautiful – and then comes the true Chennai test – crackers! The neighbours are already in full swing, their “100-wala” going off like machine gun fire.

My cousin insists: “Let’s light a Lakshmi bomb, show them we are not weak”.

My grandmother, shaking her head: “Why da? There is already enough noise in this house.” Finally, we settle on sparklers because they are safe, pretty, and don’t make the dog run under the bed. Of course, one child will always wave it too close to the curtains, and someone loudly admonishes, “Careful! This is not Marina Beach to do a torchlight parade!”

The Great Sweets Exchange

No Chennai Deepavali is complete without the annual sweet exchange with neighbours. We pack up a box of our ‘mixture and adhirasam’, hand it over, and within an hour receive a box from them, which, on suspicious inspection, looks exactly like the one we sent. Recycling at its finest!

In the end, Deepavali for us is not just the old stories of Krishna, Rama, or the Pandavas. It’s about the house smelling of ghee and filter coffee, the sound of cousins arguing over which ladoo is better, and the sparkle of lamps cutting through the Chennai night.

And yes, no matter how many fairy lights get tangled, or how many murukkus mysteriously vanish before lunch, the joy of being together always shines brighter.