Once upon a Diwali! Flashback to slowly, vanishing festive traditions

Stories seek out writeroral historian Aanchal Malhotra as much as she seeks them Sometimes they are with her all along and a slight trigger is all thats needed to bring them alive Thats what happened two years ago during Diwali celebrations at her Delhi home The glowing diyas rekindled an old memory for Aanchals paternal grandmother Bhag Malhotramdashthat of surma kohl and how celebrations were incomplete without itAanchal MalhotraAs a substance kohl remains a testament of cultural value When I was younger my mother and grandmother would apply it to our eyes to strengthen them or sometimes even to ward off evil says Aanchal who vividly recalls her mother piercing an almond with a long needle and holding it against a lit candle to burn the surface As the almond burned theyd hold a spoon with the concave side down and collect the soot on its surface The consistency of the surma was not completely dry and fine but rather a moist viscous pastelike substanceEightyyearold Bhag seen applying surmaThis would then be stored in a surmedaniWhat Aanchal wasnt aware of was how much women in the household loved darkening their eyes with surma on the festival of Diwali Ancient Indian texts also point to how women applied collyrium on the occasion I dont think there was any particular reason behind this except that it was a festival and good reason to wear makeup It was also economical and longlasting The homemade surma was such that if you applied it you could see traces of it three days laterBhagrsquos sisterinlaw Swaran Lata who made surma using the soot from the largest diya which burnt all nightFor her grandmother the surmedani still holds a special place When Bhag and her sisters came to Delhi from the Frontier Province following the Partition in 1947 they were living in the barracks at Kingsway Camp When they could afford to theyd venture into Chandni Chowk on the weekends Surmewalas would sit in a line outside the Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib in those early years of Independent India This surmedani in the picture was my grandmothers first purchases made there says Aanchal who has also written about this in the Museum ofMaterial Memory a digital repository which she cofounded with Navdha MalhotraAfter she was married Bhag was acquainted with making surma by her sisterinlaw Swaran Lata On Diwali in order to ensure that the largest diya of the house burnt all night she Swaran Lata would pour an excess of mustard oil into the earthen lamp Then breaking down twigs of the neem plant into smaller sizes she would enfold them in layers of cotton to create a thick wicklike shape and immerse it into the oil The neem an ayurvedic plant known to repel germs and insects also elongated the life of the burning wick She would then balance an earthen cover on top of the lamp and as it burnt its smoke rising it became soot which collected on the surface of the cover In the morning she would scrape the soot off and mix into it two drops of homemade pure desi ghee or mustard oil This was then applied on the eyes While the largest diya continues to burn in the Malhotra home Aanchal who has long made the switch to commercial kajal says her dadis surmedani continues to hold these memoriesSugar hutti and other forgotten sweetmeatsBatasha or sugar candy along with the chinni ke khilone were an integral part of the Lakshmi pujaHaving lived an itinerant life meant that food writer Vernika Awal who runs delectable_reveries on Instagram has experienced Diwali differently at different points in time As a child growing up with her grandparents in Delhi Lakshmi Puja was when she remembered the entire family coming together Chinni ke khilone sugar toys and batasha sugar candy used to be an integral part of the puja says Awal The tradition is central to North India especially the Punjabi heartland and common among agrarian and business communities The sugar toysmdashsugar moulded into different shapes like animals kites or human figurinesmdashsymbolised wealth and prosperityI remember how we would be given a small hut made of sugar which we called the hutti It was representative of a shop We would then go to the adults and ask them to put coins inside the hutti It was like an investment so that we brought lakshmi wealth into the family business It also signified sharing wealth with othersSince many of our relatives had their own small businesses this tradition was followed to the tee she recallsWhen Awal moved to Assam and then later to Mumbai with her parents her interaction with diverse communities meant that Diwali celebrations had become less ritualistic My father anyway didnt fit the bill as he didnt have a business of his own he was employed Also in places like Mumbai you didnt really have anyone selling sugar toys So I had completely forgotten about itVernika AwalLast year on returning to Delhi after she married Awal realised that the tradition had ceased to continue among her extended family members too Only a handful had been diligently following it she shares Awal who has been using her Instagram handle to write about lost food traditions from Punjab where she is orginally from started researching why the custom was petering out Since some of these sweetmeat vendors still sell the sugar toys and batashas at markets she approached them first They sit there through the festive season I learnt that many of them had lost their source of income and fallen on hard times as nobody was buying the sweets anymore Today its the artisanal mithais that are seen as a better alternativeAwal cant put a finger on why people are not following the tradition in the same spirit but she feels that the disintegration of the joint family system could be one reason Earlier the elderly in the house ensured that everyone held on to these traditions Also people adapt quickly to change Sometimes this change comes at a costSharing faraal in good times and badIn Maharashtra the Diwali faraal comprises chakli karanji chivda ladoos and shankarpaliIn Maharashtrian households celebrating with food trumps everything else This is why the Diwali faraal a festive platter comprising karanji chivda ladoo and shankarpali made days before the festival is still the most soughtafter Food anthropologist archaeologist and culinary expert Kurush F Dalal however bemoans how quickly the tradition of faraalmaking is vanishing among families This used to be a wellknown socioreligious as well as socioeconomic phenomena It was the time when families would come together and contribute to the preparation of the faraalThis meant sitting together chatting and cooking under one roof It was the perfect prelude to Diwali While it was a great bonding exercise it also served as a safetynet Once the faraal was ready it was distributed or rather shared between the households says Dalal There would be occasions when a particular family was going through a financially rough period and wasnt able to contribute In such times youd still receive your share of faraal That was the beauty of the traditionKurush F DalalUnfortunately with the emergence of nuclear family setups especially in urban India where most members have fulltime jobs foodmaking traditions like these have taken a hit It has its upside though People now prefer outsourcing the goodies Several women selfhelp groups still make the traditional faraal and many Maharashtrians order from them says Dalal This has done two thingsmdashfirstly it has empowered the SHGs providing a steady source of income for them secondly the faraal tradition lives on irrespective of who is making it So there is some solace at least he feelsSaee KoranneKhandekar author and culinary consultant has fond memories of the Diwali day breakfast in her home Every member of the family was expected to be up at the crack of dawn This was followed by the eldest woman of the house doing an aukshan aarti and a symbolic oil massage and a bath using fragrant homemade scrubs The faraal was then brought outSaee KoranneKhandekarIncidentally chakli which is also served as part of the faraal was actually made fresh on Diwali morning says Khandekar The warm crisp chaklis the flour mix is patiently roasted and milled well in advance would be eaten with freshly churned unsalted butter or thick dahi to mellow down the spice A lot of people dont seem to even know that chakli can be eaten with these accompaniments but it used to be a staple in many homes and something that my grandmother did religiously every yearKhandekar feels that making such an elaborate dish for breakfast on Diwali day can be quite cumbersome in homes with smaller families as there is little or no help available But I try and make a few things at home every year My chakli bhajani roasted flour mix is ready for the dayAnother tradition which many homes have long skipped is stamping of the kareet a small bitter melon to symbolise the crushing of evil and the killing of Narakasura an asura king We never did this at home but I find it most fascinating that food creeps into everythingSongs from the Kumaoni hillsHimanshu right playing Lord Ram circa 2002In Kumaon Uttarakhand the weeks preceding Diwali are dedicated to the Ramleela a living operatic tradition that continues to be the beating heart of the region In this folk theatre form the entire Ramayana is set to musicBut even living traditions are subject to evolution and change says filmmaker and artiste Himanshu Joshi who has spent more than a decade researching the Ramleela performed in the region for his film OpeRama The theatre form in the metropolis is very different from what exists in the hills Their form of expression is influenced by the popular culture of portraying any mythological figure Unfortunately some of these portrayals which I witnessed during the course of my research were not great They are influenced by the modernday television serials and soap operas Add to it the bad lighting and visual effects which tend to mar the performance People are also forgetting the operatic singing tradition The sanctity of the creation which has been going on for generations is slowly eroding with time he admitsA still from OpeRamaJoshi best known as the lead singer of rock band Indian Ocean has a long intertwined history with the Kumaon region Though he grew up in Delhi his roots are in Almora situated on the southern edge of the Kumaon Hills where every mohalla had its own version of the Ramleela It was his uncle Mohan Upreti a veteran in the field of theatre music who convinced him to take this legacy forward albeit in Delhi where Joshi as an 18yearold acted in a shorter version of the Kumaoni Ramleela From then on it became an annual ritual of sorts with Joshi starting out as Bharat before moving on to be cast as Lakshman and later even Lord RamWhile the oral tradition has continued and thrived through the passage of time its the compositions which Joshi felt urgently needed to be preserved Most of the mandalis theatre groups have a reference book which they treat as a gospel where the entire form has been written and preserved These are locked up and kept safely and accessed only if needed I wrote and compiled every bit down while it was narrated to me by the teachers The entire structure with all variations across the region was documented carefully since I didnt want these compositions to be lostBy the end of it he had a collection of over 400 compositions most of which were in Braj and Awadhi He eventually distilled them down to 382 pieces The compositions were recorded and the entire project was then submitted to the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts IGNCA in 2010 After nearly a decade the material will now be published into an archival hardbound book with a pendrive comprising the recordings and his film It will be available towards the end of a year Joshi hopesAmong the rare compositions is the Urdu song sung during Lord Rams sehrabandhi Its a tradition closely linked to North India and sung when the grooms head dress is tied before he leaves with the wedding procession Joshi says it used to be sung eight decades ago but during his research he realised that sehrabandhi was conspicuous by its absence I dont think the reason for the sehrabandhi not being sung anymore is a political one I think its an artistic choice of the people conducting the Ramleela he says There are many other compositions that have Urdu in their structure which are still sung because the language was commonly spoken among the locals at some point in timeHimanshi Joshi Pic courtesyAashima YaadavaThere is another beautiful composition Tanik Niharo Tum where Ram otherwise known as a Maryada Purushottam experiences a moment of vulnerability when he sees Sita for the first time walking in the garden In the song Ram describes the beauty of Sita saying how the moon pales in comparison Her gait is graceful like the gajraj the elephant her waist slender as a deer the composition reads In that moment Ram becomes a purush but he quickly realises what he has said and tells Lakshman that he shouldnt have said that And once again he is back to being Maryada Purushottam This particular composition is part of the theatre and is not included in Tulsidass Ramcharitmanas It was something that someone imagined and composed Its these stories that he feels may slowly vanish with timeKeep scrolling to read more newsCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and a complete guide from food to things to do and events across Mumbai Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest news