“Om Jai Jagdish” and a Happy Diwali

Belated Happy Diwali Guys. Trust you had fun and the hangovers are over; and thanks, I had an interesting Diwali too.

‘Interesting’ is actually an understatement. It was more like, hmmm…, what’s the word, educating; I guess. This was our first Diwali in DehraDun after almost two decades and frankly; we had almost forgotten the way it works. Also, I haven’t made as many blunders (in the ‘social’ way) in a span of 3 days, as around this Diwali and am now confident of not repeating my mistakes.

Blunder number one… I didn’t realize that I had to reply to each ‘mass-sent’ SMS , with a ‘Thank You Dear…We wish you a Happy Diwali too’, neither did I send any. The logic was simple. We meet our friends and relatives often enough, and they deserve more than an SMS. I call this a blunder, because after Diwali I bumped into people who actually asked me why I didn’t reply. I wanted to say, “But you forwarded the same message that Himanshu had sent to Amit and others, who forwarded it to Nisha and others, who mass forwarded the same message to her entire address book.” How do I know? Well, ‘Diwali’ was spelt ‘Diwoli’ in the last line of the message; and I got the same message from Himanshu and Amit and Nisha and maybe seven other people on the same day, only sequentially. Lesson learnt: Always send mass messages. People know you are mass mailing, but at least they know that they are on your address
book.

Blunder number two…I did not buy economical gifts for everyone I know. Its only when people that you rarely meet; come home with a gift wrapped box of ‘Haldiram’s Namkeen’, that you realize; they not just exist but also remember you. The guilt is immediate. I mean as soon as you see them at the door with something in their hand…you know that the gesture will have to be reciprocated. That of course after checking the exact value of the Namkeens.

Blunder number three…I didn’t have a picture of Goddess Laxmi , Lord Ganesh, Lord Ram, Lord Krishan, Goddess Kali, Lord Kubera, Lord Hanuman, Lord Dhanvantri, Lord Yama, King Bali, or any of the other dieties to be remembered during ‘puja’ at home. This meant that the puja had to be outsourced to our dear neighbours. Mrs, and Mr. Malhotra were kind to let us sit through their puja, but did raise an eyebrow when I couldn’t sing the entire aarti with them. I had no excuse. As a person born in a Hindu family, the least one expects to know, is “Om Jai Jagdish”.

I know; none of the blunders above deserve forgiveness. I also know that the prices of even economical gifts go up every year, so here’s my plan.

For the SMS blunder: I will start sending “Happy Diwali” to my entire address book a week before next diwali, so no body can accuse me of copying the original SMS.

For the economical gifts blunders: Some that we received this year will last till the next. The rest we plan to buy.

For the puja blunder: Mrs. and Mr. Malhotra have agreed to continue living in our colony and be our neighbours.

“Om Jai Jagdish” and a very Happy Diwali. This, by the way; is for the one next year. In advance!

Vineet Panchhi owns and runs Audio Wagon, his lifelong passion and now a music company. He blogs at Unplanned Journeys , and can be reached at: vineet.panchhi@audiowagon.com