Lights, Camera, Action

So, today, the 8th of December, I woke up thinking that the most miraculous day was at hand, today I will meet my friends after a long time, today I will tell them such cool stories, today I will have the best day ever.

And promptly fell asleep again.

Now, if my day ended as flat as that I'd have nothing to write about. I had a wonderful yet strangely bizarre day.

Part 1: Being a dodo!

I was late. I was over-dressed. I would think of a wonderful story and lose thread of it. In short, everyone had nice time making fun of me (including me!).

Part 2: Having Fun

Then, we really settled in, having a nice time. We watched Tintin. First I realised, I couldn't make out anything and realised that I had to wear my 3D glasses. I still couldn't make out anything. Finally, had the sense to wear the 3D glasses on top of my own! Nice time and food. And of course, awesome movie.

Part 3:  The Question

As a person who delegates all festival planning to naturally-endowed-feminine-beings (subtitle: I am too lazy and you are my younger sister and I have universal rights to lord over you), I ventured to ask my mother what we celebrate during Karthikai Deepam.

*Pausing for a fabulous story on some hitherto unknown myth that is yet to be uncovered in my quest for history that may hide a nugget of true fact or wisdom*

Mom: "I don't know!"

*Never mind, ask Wikipedia*

Part 4: The Attack

Serenely googling on Karthikai Deepam, I sat on the sofa when I heard a bone-chilling blood-curdling scream.

Then, I saw the source. I hoped it wouldn't be what I thought. Alas!

I saw it.

It. It is a jointed-legged, bilaterally symmetrical, arthropod. It. It is a species that can strike terror into my soul. Worse, it had evolved to a form most feared and most detested...

A pair of diaphanous wings.

It was a flying cockroach.

Defying the laws of aerodynamics, it flew around the house causing havoc. It was in the kitchen first, causing my sister to scream. Unaware of the devious plugin, I had been exceptionally calm. And then...

It flew. It flew in a lopsided manner right at my mom. Scream. Then, it flew right at me. I could almost imagine its fiendish high pitched voice say "I am going to get you, mwahahahahahahaha". Scream. Very soon, the flat was filled with three, identical feminine screams. I am sure we would have beaten that opera singer in Tintin. It bordered on ultrasound. Thankfully, god sent our saviour, my dad. He entered, by the use of mystic Himalayan powers, the being submitted dolefully at his feet for judgement.

Part 5: Karthikai Deepam (Lights)

My sister, emboldened by her success at making Krishna's feet out of rice flour, she decided to make a kolam and I was to draw a suitable design for her. Why draw, when you can google? Anyway, I chose one with straight lines and decided it would be good enough. My sister threw tantrum saying she will not draw a swastik as it's Hitler's sign. Curse you Hitler, I have to google search more. Finally, we decided to use that one without the swastik in the middle.

So, we swept the floor and got down to work ( she did the work, mine was to supervise). She put the dots so close together that it was beyond the resolving power of my optical lens to distinguish them. Confident of my intuition with spacing and engineering drawing, I deigned to help her. Soon, we were done, it was so beautifully laid out. And as I got up, she fervently asked me to help. I decided, why so much scene, just join her and have fun.

It was far from fun. No matter how slow you did, how you held the powder, it always fell in lumps and not the straight line I envisioned. I used to do it so nicely when I was small and of that same smug conviction, I entered into the fray. Next to me, my sister was no better. I gave up after one row and thought it looked good enough anyway and decided to stamp out the remaining dots. But no, my sister would persevere. I went inside and got the lamps out. Now the mysterious things about our lamps is that they always disappear into the crevices of our tiny flat that we end up buying before the festival anyway. So, as I continued the oil-filling and wick-placing, I had only five of them, wondering whether all the others had been lost in shifting. Outside, my poor sister was ragged by neighbours and even the watchman. Finally, she was done.

Then the usual, she sang, I rang the bell. We prayed. Or at least, my mom and my sister prayed and I closed my eyes wondering if some miracle was possible to convert the ghastly rice-flour-doormat into something more presentable. We placed the lamps, facing our house and it did look pretty pretty when you switched off the lights.

Part 6: Camera

Infused with a sudden desire to capture it in photograph, I eagerly brought out my camera. it looked pathetic. My Machiavellian scheme was that the kolam intricacies wouldn't be visible in the dark anyway! My sister gave up after sometime, but this time I would persevere. I messaged our class' photographing/photoshopping expert how to do it. He told me to reduce the exposure by going to manual mode. Right, my camera did not have any manual mode for sure. Finally, I tried fireworks and sunset. It was slightly better and accepting defeat I came back inside.

Action:

It certainly was an action-packed day. I wrote this blog entry and was so exhausted, I traipsed straight to bed and had nightmares about scheming Nazis, Haddock singing "Why this kolaveri kolaveri di?"  and thankfully no arthropods!

P.S. Sehwag scored double century. Woo hoo! But then. my blog I am far more important.