Happy (chhoti) Diwali, folks! While this year the festive season has been pretty dull in office, my excitement levels are finally at a fever pitch. Not only do I get to go home to Delhi today evening, I am flying Vistara for the first time. Little joys, you see. 🙂

Diwali is the favourite time of the year for me and also the time that I miss home the most. You can literally feel the joy in the air through the hordes of crowds, the shopping, the special stalls at sweet shops, the beautiful decorations, the dry fruit baskets, card parties and just the togetherness.

A typical Diwali day for me starts with going to the local market, getting fresh marigold garlands for the puja area, putting up a Diwali signage at the entrance door, tediously making a not-so-artistic rangoli with coloured rice powder (like the one in the photo above), dressing up, sitting for the puja, eating sweets, wishing all the neighbours and of course putting candles and diyas on all sides of the house along with a bare minimum of fireworks.

I began to visualize how my day tomorrow would go and realised that “hey, as Indians we actually have a major festival dedicated to worshipping for wealth and well-being”.  I researched more and realised how fascinating goddess Lakshmi really is.

A simple search for “goddess Lakshmi” throws up about 21 Lakh results. A quick glance through the first few articles revealed that she is attributed with a lot of things like good fortune, wealth, prosperity, beauty and fertility.

In my head, if a day in the year is specifically reserved to pray for wealth to enter your home, then as a culture and a society should we not respect the present currency of prosperity – money? No better day than today to start taking your money seriously then.

Think about it and have a fantastic Diwali!