Diwali Celebrations '09

Diwali, the Indian festival of lights, was this last Saturday. Since it is the biggest festival in the rather festival-filled Indian calendar, we spent Saturday morning on the phone and on Skype talking to family in Singapore, India and the USA. Both my Wife and I were dressed in new clothes, courtesy of my parents who sent them to us via courier. The Wife was dressed in a beige and green silk saree, which proved to be quite the challenge to put on, and I wore a dark blue t-shirt and jeans (see picture on right).

In a space of 2-3 hours, we went through 4 time zones and wished everyone a very happy and fulfilling day. By the end of it all, my Wife's saree looked considerably tired and creased, thanks to sitting on the couch for an extended period of time. Bothered by the look of the saree and by the general unwieldiness of a silk saree, my Wife decided to change into a blouse and jeans as we left the house to commence our celebratory day!

We had planned to meet a college friend of my Wife's for lunch (and later activities to follow), so took a train to Dandenong to meet her. We are starving by the time we got there around 1:30 pm and decided to eat at a hole-in-the-wall Indian cafe called Calcutta Sweets & Cafe. The place was absolutely flooded with people and we were lucky to snag a table for three almost immediately. The food was quite good and we devoured it quickly.

Then, we decided to indulge in the time-honoured tradition of watching a new movie on Diwali, and proceeded to the cinema to watch the latest Hindi blockbuster, Blue. An extravagant production, but one sorely lacking in substance. The highlight of the film was an item number performed by Kylie Minogue, Chiggy Wiggy, which is quite a catchy number! And when an item number is the highlight of a film, you know how it is!

After the movie, we went to the Shiva Vishnu temple in Carrum Downs to honour the religious aspect of this festive day. There was a huge crowd of Indian folks amongst a smattering of white folk at the temple. Lots of colour, a variety of tongues being spoken and a few peacocks strutting their beautiful feathers in a cage! The peacocks, considered the official vehicle of Lord Muruga, are normally on the temple premises in their cage, but it seemed like they were aware of the festive occasion as well because they readily posed with their feathers spread out for the camera-armed gathering of kids and adults. Needless to say, we were among the crowd and managed a few nice looks.

At around 7:30 pm, we were hungry and decided to head to Madras Banyan Tree, an authentic South Indian restaurant in Moorabbin, that we had been to before and loved! The problem was we underestimated the time it would take us to get there from the temple. I estimated the travel to take us about 30 mins, but we only reached there eventually at 9 pm! Unfortunately, Melbourne public transport can get quite sketchy after about 8 pm, so we endured a slightly uncomfortable journey to the restaurant as we had to share our train carriage with some visibly shady characters.

Anyhow, we were thrilled when we reached the restaurant. It was packed, but we managed to snag a table quickly and ordered a few dosas, some starters and some coconut rice. Thankfully, our food arrived quickly and we gorged ourselves on some delicious South Indian food! Yes, Super Babe, we thought of you. We will go there when you visit us in the Land Down Under!

We finished eating around 9:45 pm and there was no way I was prepared to get back on the train because we had at least another hour's trip back home (including a change of train). We went to the taxi stand across the road, and waited for 10 mins for a cab to finally realise there were potential passengers waiting...us!!! All the while, we were freezing in the cold night wind and keeping an eye on a couple of bums near us! Once we finally hopped into our cab, we reached the comfort of our home in about 20 mins, ending a rather eventful Diwali...the first for the Wife and I as a married couple! You can see more pictures of our Diwali adventures here.