Keeping Up with the Jones' in India: Diwali

We’ve been lucky enough to experience the biggest festival of the year in India over the last week – Diwali, the Festival of Lights. Diwali marks the end of the Hindu year and is probably the most important festival of the year, across India. It is called the Festival of Lights as it involves the lighting of small clay lamps filled with oil to signify the triumph of good over evil. The lamps are kept on during the night and the house is also cleaned, both done in order to make the goddess Lakshmi feel welcome. Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth and she is welcomed so that she brings luck and wealth for the coming year. It’s a festival that is celebrated with family and friends by visiting each other, giving sweets and setting off A LOT of fireworks, or “firecrackers” as they call them here. It’s a bit like bonfire night and New Year’s Eve all rolled into one, and we started the celebrations on the eve of Diwali with a fireworks display at the Madras Regiment Centre. The display was fantastic, but what really made it was the drum and pipe marching band, who wore black uniforms and then appeared out of nowhere when they suddenly turned on rows of lights sewn all over their uniforms!

The Luminous Band!

Not being Hindus ourselves, we thought we’d just have a quiet day at home, but as usual we were overwhelmed by the generosity and hospitality of all our friends here. Neil had the day off work and we gave Fathima, Anandh and Vasa the day off too. The girls decided to have a bit of a lie-in too (well till 7.30am anyway!), so we had a lazy morning and bacon and eggs for breakfast. We visited Ashleigh (one of the US officers) and Ian and Elaine before lunch, and then both girls were persuaded to have a sleep in the afternoon – bliss!! The fireworks had been going off since 6.30am and we’d been invited round to a few people’s houses that night, so we set off at 6.30pm and visited as many friends as we could, whilst trying not to eat our body-weight in Indian sweets or get rocketed by stray fireworks as health and safety guidelines seemed to be non-existent! We had a really great night and only came home at 11.30pm as Ava was falling asleep on people’s carpets! We are now trying to prevent Daisy from eating sweets non-stop throughout the day, we were given so many!

Rangoli Decorations outside a Friend's House

Our Meagre Diwali Lights!

Diwali at Prashant and Aparna's House

Diwali Decorations

Last weekend we had a dinner party, British-style, and invited 3 Indian couples to join us: all British food, a couple of drinks before dinner, dinner at around 8.30pm, sitting around the table and chatting. It was a good night and it was nice to sit down all together at the same time and talk over a shared meal, but we hoped that our guests didn’t find it a bit formal. Hopefully, they enjoyed the “British Experience”!

For Neil, the exercise season is most definitely upon him. He spent a week working with the Indian Navy hunting ships and destroying oil rigs, and now he’s working with the Army targeting bridges, fuel dumps and logistic storage areas, although he says he used smaller bombs on the last target in solidarity with the loggies. The exercise with Neil’s colleagues in green involves both the Air and Army Wings and has over 300 students taking part. At times it appears to be bedlam, with students racing everywhere to attend briefs and give presentations; yet through the chaos some semblance of order prevails and the work seems to get done. The Army exercise started with Neil working in a joint syndicate to plan the resupply of a deployed Army Division and then move them, via strategic and tactical aircraft; something he’s had a little bit of experience of over the last few years. However, when Neil first arrived in the new joint syndicate, a number of the Indian Army officers were concerned that they were being hamstrung as both he and another International Officer were in the Syndicate. On hearing this, Neil used a few choice words and phrases to explain that he may be able to assist in the planning exercises, and if they didn’t need his help, he was more than happy to take the downtime. After this ‘friendly’ exchange, everything worked well and the exercise completed on time; some members of the Indian Army can now say that they have a basic understanding of what an RAF Logistics Officer gets up to and they were also introduced to a new range of words within the English language! As we write this, Neil is one week into a 2-week Joint Army exercise. He is still smiling, but is looking forward to next Friday when the exercise draws to a close.

On the golfing scene, Neil’s handicap has dropped to 20 from the 24 score he had when he arrived. For all you non-golfers out there, dropping 4 shots in 8 months is pretty good. It also means that Neil can enter a number of tournaments at the WGC Golf Club. Last weekend he played in the Indian Navy Golf Open and came third in the 15-18 Handicap category. Neil was very pleased and he would have come second if he hadn’t been pipped to the post by a Maj General who shot a great round; although Neil feels that the General’s handicap should be slashed with immediate effect! It’s good to see that all the practice time Neil spends on the golf course is really starting to pay off; he says that if he improves the same amount professionally, promotion to 2-star is assured!!