I started the bottle fireworks activity and the puffy art one about a week before Diwali so that we could show it to their visiting friends during the week and make cards etc out of the puffy art. The same night, after the kids went to bed, I received a phone call from my dad telling me one of my chachas (his younger brother) had suddenly passed away. It was dreadful to say the least. A person whom you have grown up around and live with in the same house (we stayed in the same house on separate floors), too many memories become a part of you. How he used to come every Tuesday from the mandir to give us boondi prasad, how he many a times just stopped by on his way upstairs to just chat, off late how he brought my kids new coins of different denominations to just keep with them, all flashed before my eyes. I spoke to my chachi and my cousins and of course broke down as they spoke. I spoke to my bua and my dad again in the next few days and broke down again. You feel so far in situations like these and the heart feels heavier on sensing the immediate kin's sorrow.
However, the Diwali excitement had already taken over the kids. We have many Indian families in the apartment complex that we stay in and the kids had already started planning about bursting fire crackers, an upcoming Diwali get together and the like. I almost was sure of not sharing the news with Niño and Chica, partly because Niño is a pretty sensitive child. Death bothers him a lot. He would have remembered my chacha as M's nana (M is my cousin's son) whom he was very pally with when I visited my parents place and then he would have worried himself silly. Had we been in Delhi, it would have been different. They would have known but there would have been a lot more people to take their mind off the troubling news. For almost a week in the past summer holidays, I don't know how Niño had had this fear of my going away when he gets older and he used to cry at nights. Now the question was what to do about Diwali. I didn't feel the fervor I did till a day back to celebrate but at the same time I couldn't abandon it either. That would mean many many questions especially from the elder one as also displeasure on there not being a good enough reason. So I continued with the preparing the cards and the sweets and the savories to be exchanged with friends. In the mornings when kids were away, I spent some silent moments, spoke with my dad about not feeling very good but still doing all that. He was anyways cool about it. I come from a practical family where loss is mourned, no doubt, but we are encouraged to get back in our regular schedules and try to get over it so as not to disturb the usual routine of things. It helped to hear that from him. However not everyone shares the thought. And so in order to be not judged, I didn't share the news with any of my friends here. I had my reasons for doing what I was!
