Silver lining to a subdued Diwali

The interesting thing is, there is no anger. Things have been this way for a while now, and people seem resigned to their fate. It does help I guess when you see how bad things are elsewhere. Some months ago, I saw a photograph of piles of unsold festive Moon cakes in Hong Kong — a sign as certain as the tame Diwali firecracker of a declining economy. And now there is the spectacle of middle-class people in that once prosperous island city, hundreds of people profitably employedbefore, seeking menial jobs, some of them reduced to living in cages the size of bunk beds.

Things haven’t got that bad here. At least not yet. And in some ways there is reason to be grateful for this year’s unusual Diwali. For me, the sobriety was a welcome change from the obscene ostentation of the party days of liberalisation when card parties — hitherto a limited activity in Mumbai which with its mixed Maharashtrian-Gujarati-South Indian etc. population does not have a card-playing tradition like the Punjabi north — had suddenly become the rage, and we were treated to the ugly sight of young men drunk, flashing wads of notes and raising the stakes with every round. And then there is this story I saw on adulterated mithai on television. The phenomenon is not new of course. I remember hearing even as a child of blotting paper being used in the making of rasgullas, malaisandwiches and other plump delicacies. Blotting paper is still being used, along with banned colours, compounds andaluminium foil that can actually lacerate your insides. The story was enough to put me off shopped mithai for a while. And perhaps it’s a good thing if the belt-tightening has forced people to resort to the homely dudhi halwa this year.

Then there is the amazingly buoyant price of onions, which I think has at last taught us to value that unappreciated vegetable. But what truly blew me away was this. I was at my grandmother’s for lunch and, at some point in the afternoon, my aunt went around distributing the token New Year offering. I gaped at the notes in my hand, stunned by the realisation that the total was an even number! An eternal past of hunting, begging, and tearing one’s hair out to find that auspicious one rupee or five rupee note flashed through my mind. Coins, when they became omnipresent, were a poor substitute for notes but even they would do because the rule was: it could be 11, 21, 101… but never, absolutely never, 10, 20, or 100. And here it was — years of unyieldingtradition and superstition wiped out in one easy blow by — what else — the change crisis! I guess it is true what they say about every cloud and its silver lining.