Need to be Home for DIWALI!!

Remember that Maruti advertisement!!! Hope in spite of all odds the guy manages to get a lift home in a Maruti for celebrating Diwali. Being at home on Diwali is so important.
I too am one such guy. I love the festival, the lights, and the happiness everywhere. I seem to never have missed the festivities of Diwali since ever. While I was a kid, I used to celebrate the festival like crazy.
Starting with the electric lighting on all the visible roofs, painting the walls above those with red paint to write Shubh Laabh and then, in the evenings, running up and down the stairs carrying those earthen diyas in a tray putting them in every corner of the house as soon as the Ganesh-Laksmi pooja got over. And after that, cracking all those fire crackers with so many relatives.
I managed to continue this even after I went to college. Although, getting home wasn't possible during those four years of engineering in a distant southern corner of India, I managed to find some like-minded people. We would dress up in all sorts of traditional clothes, go to temples, light diyas outside our rooms at least and have a lavish dinner after that. This was not the best way we could celebrate Diwali, but at least this was some way we could!!
As it turned out, after getting a job, I managed to sneak back home on diwali for two successive years. Both these times, I distinctly remember watching this Maruti advertisement several times on my laptop before actually leaving for home.
This Diwali is going to be a different story altogether. This time I am far-far away from home. Its been only a few days since I arrived here. So not a big chance that I can still celebrate it with friends. You don't get earthen pots here, so how do I light diyas? We have a temple here, far away from my place, but I think I will go there.. to celebrate Diwali, in whatever way it can be celebrated. The achievement I seem to have achieved, though, is that its a holiday on Diwali here too..

Foreign lands..... the Indo-Pak way!!

Whenever I meet someone from Pakistan, I really get a warm feeling from inside of having met someone very close after a long time. You won't feel it till the time you talk to someone from the neighboring country. And obviously, me being from Lucknow, love hearing the perfect blend of Hindi and Urdu as it should be. And when we converse we somehow exchange a few words which directly reach the heart and make us ponder as to why the two countries still aren't able to be friends with each other!
So I went to an Indische restaurant in Munich a few days back for dinner with an old friend. It turned out to be a Lahori-Indische restaurant, the ones serving Indo-Pak cuisine. The owner came to us, very politely and gently, took our orders, and served us a delicious meal ( the food was a but expensive though, especially the water, but then, we from the sub-continent are known to make fools of even our own people really well).  After filling the desires of the stomach and heart, my friend (who was giving the treat) was all set to loose some more euros. By the way, its not about the owner getting emotional and serving us free meals!! So the waiter came with the bill and while my friend was using his card, we started some small talk.
The guy asked us where we were from. He spoke in the typical tone spoken by an Indian Punjabi/ Haryanvi but with some polite words. Since I was the only one amongst the group who could speak hindi perfectly, I decided to take that question. I introduced everyone and then told that  am from Lucknow and he was like, "O so you are from the city of Nawabs, tehzeeb ka sheher (city of Etiquettes)".  As an etiquette, I too asked from him that where was he from. He simply said, that he belonged to Punjab. My immediate reply was, "The one in India or the on in Pakistan"? His reply was, and I would like to quote by memory, "Paaji kya baat karte ho aap bhi, kya India kya Pakistan, hum to bas Punjab se hai". I didn't have any words to reply to that!!
This conversation left me thinking again, what I have thought several times in so many years! Why are we still fighting, the people they don't see or imagine India and Pakistan differently. We have so much similarity in whatever we do, even then we can't be together. But I was happy somewhere. Happy to see and know, that even though we can't be friends on our own lands, we are at least brothers in a foreign land. The reason for being foes at home, is left for you and the bureaucracy to decide!!