After having struggled with myself to wake up yet again this morning, I felt something different today. The air was filled with the festive vibes; there was a hustle-bustle in the house, and my mom was running here and there to get her work done.

I was wondering why my mom always had so much work to do. The answer showed up as I left the room. The house had been lightened up, it had been filled with fragrances of both the perfume and the tasty food, and everything was spick and span.

All the homemakers do the household work so selflessly that without them the Diwali would never happen. So we decided why don’t we thank them all for the selfless time they invest in making our homes better? Shall have we?

I along with Mansi and Photographer Akshit set sail to find the vegetable vendors of the city. You ask why? So there was the plan and just like every plan at JWB it had to have a name. This plan was called ‘‘Dil-wa-li Sabzi.” Since every homemaker would buy vegetables from the ‘’sabzi walle bhaiya,’’ with 1 kilo of onion, we would give them 10gms of Gratitude and heartfelt wishes.

We also glued the vegetables with some good looking ‘thank you’ stickers so as to add more to the love that we were sharing.

So let’s meet all the beautiful homemakers that we met on the street.

The first Lady was Anita Tanwar who greeted us with a big smile.

ME: What preparations have you already done for Diwali?

ANITA: I have been cleaning the house for days now; lightings have been hung; now what is left is to make the Rangoli.

ME: What is that one sweet that you can’t imagine your Diwali without?

ANITA: My favorite one which is yet to be prepared is Kajju katli. My sister-in-law makes this amazingly soft and sweet kaju katli that nobody can stop eating. And one more thing that is very tasty is…

Already drooling like our Dogger-in-chief Poppy and not willing to drool anymore, I weighed some love and heartfelt wishes by pasting stickers on the cucumbers she had bought and wished her a Happy Diwali.

Poppy, I feel you know.

She was so happy by our gesture that she blessed us by putting her hands on us. This really made us feel special.

The next person was another sweet lady Sharda Rathore. Calm and poised she was, we asked her just one question.

ME: What is your most favorite part of all the preparations that you make for Diwali?

Shraddha:  Apart from all the things that are done for Diwali, I love the lighting part *laughs*

Mansi and I first hesitated and then asked her about the reason for her laugh, to which she replied, ‘’Since our house is attached to a hotel, it is the responsibility of the hotel to decorate our house and not mine. This way one hideous task gets canceled from my checklist..’’ *Laughs again*

Filling happiness and laughter in the air, we wished Mrs. Shradda a Happy Diwali and blessed her with a bag full of Happiness that the stickers possessed. Shhh!! They are magical stickers

P.S. The bag was full of potatoes too.

Now the next person to meet was *drumroll* Sudha Sharma. Does it ring a bell? Sure it doesn’t. But after reading this story, you all will recognize her as the sweetest person ever.

 

SHE: Yes! I am really happy with this kind gesture. I am so glad that I got a chance to meet you, people. Had I been a little late I would have lost the chance to witness happiness being measured with vegetables. I wish everybody could give me such love and support so that I could do all the daily tasks with more enthusiasm.

Sweet, isn’t? Therefore we not only wished Mrs. Sudha a Happy Diwali but we also filled her bag with loads and loads of love and support.

Strolling through those small lanes was tiring, so here I was freshening myself up with juggling. You should have seen the vendor’s angry face. He was about to throw the lemons at me. Had he been able to do that, I would grab the opportunity and make lemonade *pun intended*

Next to meet were three ladies Meera Devi, Santoshi Sharma and Saraswati

Avid believers of bringing back the tradition of making sweets at home, they told us that they prepared all the Diwali sweets themselves. When asked, what was their favorite thing to eat, the three of them immediately replied Moong Daal ka Halwa, to which Ms. Sarawati added that she also loved Gud ki chiiki.

Sounds yum, isn’t it? We shamelessly asked them if we can taste the sweets but Alas! They weren’t made yet. Heartbroken as we were we moved ahead to sell vegetables while gluing the stickers on them.

The last were Tripti Bhagat and Anita Bhagat.

Okay! So le’me tell you first, Tripti Bhagat is a passionate reader of all the blogs on JWB, so we ought to be biased with her. Jk.

Just like everybody, we asked them about a few questions of how she was, how the Diwali preparations were going on and what was the one wish she wanted this Diwali to come true. Like every mother in the country, this is what she answered.

Tripti Bhagat: I wish that all the children around the country could help their mammas during Diwali and if not help then they should at least clean their own rooms.

Nervously laughing, it immediately reminded me that I had to clean up my room too which I totally forgot. I am dead now.

Also, she told us that she made really yum ‘Mutter Pulao’ Mmmmm…. mmmm….

When asked Anita Bhagat if her husband or children help her during Diwali, she replied:

ANITA: Yes! Of course, they do. I have distributed the particular work to particular people. Like the cooking, this department is mine, any arrangements for the house is done by my husband, and as for my children, they are responsible for cleaning and dusting the whole house, which they clearly aren’t good at. *Rolls eyes upwards*

She says, ”Gone are the days when only women used to do all the household work. At my home, everybody does it.”

We sure need more moms like this!

Having shared our love, gratitude and veggie stickers with the home-makers, we wished them a prosperous Happy Diwali and parted ways, and to whosoever is reading the blog, we wish to see you lending a hand to your mother in the house so as to celebrate a Dilwali Diwali this year.

But before ending this story, please look at sbazi ka thela that we made a haphazard of Enjoy!

Photo Courtesy: