Diwali lights and gifts
It’s Diwali: the annual festival of lights, spread over these four days from now until Sunday. Diwali wishes to all! May the new year bring good cheer and happiness, renewal and fulfillment all around.
This is the one festival that my family celebrates with abandon, and the one festival I can never be home for, given the dratted semester system. To be sure, there are religious ceremonies, and a mythical tale of good triumphing over evil that ensures renewal and prosperity – but what is Diwali without new clothes, fireworks, and food? The centrepiece is a snacks package called faraal in Marathi – about twenty different types of eats are made specially in each family, depending on their resources, taste and enthusiasm. Everyone exchanges faraal over the Diwali weeks and you give yourself over entirely to fried dough, powdered sugar and clarified butter. It is a good time. I am attempting an ambitious faraal myself this time, but more about that in the next post – cross your fingers that I manage to get it all together.
My festivities began spectacularly today. I had a very intense, exhilarating graduate seminar class, and came back home to open a package from Finland, containing this:
Silja sent me the most gorgeous sock ever in the whole wide world, encased in a wonderful little bag, along with a spare skein of Regia silk for me to knit the second one in the pair.
I love the colour, the fit, the pattern – thank you, thank you, thank you single sock partner! You chose everything just right, and this is just the perfect, timely festival gift. I cannot wait to knit its pair. I have been wearing the lone sock all over the flat already. That Cookie A. is a genius designer, just look at the twisted flower stitches:
Finally, this evening concluded on a pleasant note with this finished object:
Although not mine, I am proudly featuring it on the blog, as the first FO of my friend who learnt how to knit not two weeks ago! Isn’t it gorgeous? Just look at the elegant shape. She switched to DPNs in our neighbourhood Chinese restaurant this evening over dinner, and we walked home to cast off and photograph the hat amidst much squealing and glee. I am amazed at how smoothly she transitioned from circulars to DPNs, and from ribbing to stockinette to decreases. Definitely a natural at the craft! I think I have some idea of what evangelists feel like, finally. She left the house muttering, “cabling without a cabling needle…” even without my broad hints about knittinghelp.com, Ravelry, Zimmermann, etc….. I think we might have a convert!
It’s not for nothing that all the photos in this post have a warm glow, eh?
