Deepavali 2011 ! - My favourite festival!

Deepavali has been my favourite festival 'ad nauseam'! The festival brings in the 'Kid' in us, new clothes, an atmosphere of happiness and just great feeling. It doesn't have a rigid pooja regimen or the hectic preparation behind it. Simply put, it's so much fun and frolic!  Here's how we celebrated our Deepavali this year!

25th Oct, 2011 - Tuesday - Naraka Chaturdasi.
Celebrated Deepavali at 'Vinayadeep'. For a change, we decided that we will go out and explore the town, and see the world outside on a Deepavali day. We went around to Jayanagar complex and explored this part of town for the billionth time. Tried out the new food outlet 'Golmal Parathas'. 100% Veg and simply awesome taste!. Rs. 100 for a Paratha thali was reasonable considering the size of the Parathas, Quantity of Pulav and Subjees that came along. Taste was awesome and was a big hit with the family. So a good place to try out for anybody who have not been there already. This place is on one of the road that connects 4th Block complex to the 'Sapphire Toys shop'. (Bus Stand Terminal for buses going towards 9th block).

Raingods threw tantrums right through the afternoon dampening the festive spirit. Sarju, Sanjeev and Srivaali joined us for the celebrations in the evening and provided much needed company to celebrate bursting of crackers. Pooja, Srivaali and Nisha had a great time trying out their favourite crackers.

Deepu, Asha and Nisha joined the forces and literally put the entire street on fire!

26th Oct, 2011 - Wednesday - Laxmi Pooja
Soujanya had invited a lot of folks over to Chiguru for celebrating the 2nd day of Deepavali. Madhuri and the little 'Abiram' were the guests of honour for the day, accompanied by her parents. Harish, Lavanya, Sanjana, Parents-in-laws and my parents joined us for a wonderfully cooked lunch. 

Laxmi pooja is the bigger Diwali for Traders, Businessmen and North Indians and the area around our apartments have a lot of these people. As expected, the evening sky was lit with amazing fireworks. I perched on the roof top ready with my camera to capture the evening sky as Bangaloreans tore into the sky with brilliant display of firepower.

27th Oct, 2011 - Thursday - Balipadyami
Soujanya, Pooja and myself joined back Vinayadeep and spent the evening with family enjoying another round of crackers and lipsmacking food.

That ended a fun filled Deepavali of 2011 and waiting earnestly for the next one to arrive! Love this festival. Hope you folks too had a wonderful Deepavali too!

Here are some select pictures that were taken during the festival.

Deepavali 2011

Deepavali 2010!

Once again, Deepavali came and went and gave us as much fun and pleasure as always. One festival, which I believe to be the best when it comes to festivity, celebration and spirit. I simply love this festival! New Clothes, lots of people, great food, kids enjoying crackers - so amazing!

Off late, I have not been getting enough time with my camera and Night Photography has always eluded me for want of a good source of inspiration.

What better source of inspiration do your need for Night photography than Deepavali! So, on the 2nd Day of Deepavali, I climbed up to the roof top of our apartments and spent some time experimenting with my camera. Even though I must have taken a 100 pictures, a few of them cut into 'Pass' category!

Have uploaded the same here as well as on Facebook.

Deepavali of 2010

Enjoy and have fun. Don't forget to ink your thoughts.

Signing off in anticipation of many more bright and colourful Deepavalis.

Regards,
Vinay.

Deepavali of 2009

Ah! The festival of those wonderful lights, bursting crackers, meeting people and the wonderful food during the 3 day extravaganza! None of the festivals in the Hindu calendar can beat this one, at least for me.

17th Oct, 2009, was the "Naraka-chaturdashi" day.

This year, Amma had to leave to Chennai for Abhi's Upanayanam ('Cross-Thread ceremony' for those who don't understand our rituals ;-) ). So her absence was definitely felt during the festivity all through.

So Soujanya, Pooja and myself along with Anna, got up early on the 17th for the "Enne Shastra". ("Enne" as in "Oil" not "Alchohol", you perverts ;-) ). For the first time though, Pooja did the Aarthi to all of us. Brand new clothes bought the previous day was waiting for us and we wore them all, looking bright and cheerful for the rest of the day.

Our in-laws had invited us over for lunch along with a whole bunch of fun loving family members including Souji's Chikamma, Chikappa, Kiran, Lavanya, Harish, Sanjana and Soujanya's eldest uncle from Hyderabad.

Delicious food after noon was followed by huge discussions on every single topic under the sun and kept us awake for the rest of the afternoon. All of us then migrated to our house in Hanumanthanagar for the simulated war-zone experience "Deepavali@Vinayadeep" session, which lived up to it's name for the rest of the evening. Every kid on the block was making sure that there was more cracker papers for the next day morning sweeper to clean.

Souji and Pooja decorated the house compound with neat looking "Deepa" (Diyas). Our home looked so beautiful with all of these lights. It was definitely a pretty sight.

Nisha, Deepu and Asha too joined us for bursting a whole lot of night crackers ranging from just ordinary to the ultimate fancy ones. From the hissing snake to the Swastik ground chakras to the whistling crackers to the North Indian imported "Anaar", one after another, the marathon session continued non-stop for 2 hours. Pooja loved the night crackers and wanted more! So did the young at heart.

The most hilarious one was a cracker which looked like a "Post card". It was marked - "To NaraGasura", "Address: Hell". Costing 50 bucks, this was such a hopeless let-off after realizing that it was a rip-off.

Overall, the day went pretty well and all of us had a great time together.

Here are a few photos and videos that we clicked during the event.

Deepavali 2009

Photos from Deepavali of 2008

Deepavali 2008 @ Vinayadeep

First of all, Wishing you all a Very Happy and Bright Deepavali!

We celebrated Deepavali on the Oct 27th, 2008 (Narakachaturdashi) and the hightlight this time around was that Pooja really participated in lighting the crackers and had a whale of a time. Infact, We were a bit apprehensive about all the noise the crackers would make, and were expecting that she will stay inside the house. But discovered that she loves to see the crackers going burst and enjoyed every variation we had. Overall, had a great time and enjoyed the festivity.

Here are some pictures taken during the event.

Deepavali 2008