The happiness of "happy diwali"

Two days from now is Diwali... While in India I had stopped feeling excited about Diwali, or any festivals for that matter!! I guess...years of celebrating so many festivals of different types had depleted me of enthusiasm for them. The last few years in Mumbai & Pune were a sheer formality towards the festivities, my culture and very often my religion. Festivals in India can be socially a very busy time, and off late the unsocial temprament that I had developed just kept me non-chalant towards social events like them; but out of sheer duty I often pretended to celebrate them. This year was different,I guess when you are away from your homeland, you start missing subtle things about her. You know the perks of your current sitation, but your greed demands that you can get the best of that world too. You crave to hear an echo of "Happy Diwali" and you wish you didnot have to explain your peer at work that "Deepavali and Diwali" are the same thing. Homesickness on occassions like festivals are common sentiments that not only me but diasporas for times immemorial have experienced. Hence,its no point touching upon the homesickness aspect, but to look at a more fundamental underlying principal of what makes Diwali, "Happy Diwali". Just as I would have, if in India, today I continued the annual rhythm of performing my duty towards this festival, I went for Diwali shopping to Little India (in Singapore). Infamous for its mob like crowding on Sundays, Little India's "Diwali village" streets looked worse than usual, and immediately I was reminded of the droning crowds on Indian streets that made the festivals look and feel happier than an average Indian could concieve. Not having too many acquaintances or friends in Singapore made "Diwali shoppoing" feel more of a chore today than it did in any of the previous years. The unusually narrow and suffocatingly busy streets of little India, didnt help the cause of instilling any excitement about the festival. When I entered the "Diwali village" street of little India, it was like one of those nose blocked plunges (that we call "Dubki") into the ganges which is done to wash off your sins. During the dubki u know that the cause is noble (that of washing off your sins), but the act is scary (that of immersing your breath under water). Similarly, as I entered the Diwali village i knew i was risking my life to the hands of a suffocatingly large mob, but at the same time I was going to do justice to my culture by preparing for Diwali. So I took the plunge, and emerged alive, but utterly displeased -cursing the one who created the idea of festivals!! After the ordeal, when I returned home and logged into my facebook account, I found a friend in Delhi post a pic of a well-lit up Delhi neighbourhood - each balcony of the multi-storeyed building lighted up by fancy bulbs, some of which I imagined must be flickering to catch attention but the still photo couldnot capture the excitement they were conveying.I looked at the pic, and re-looked, stared, gazed, and admired not the aesthetics of the snap but the fact that I was craving for the live view of the inanimate presentation. Several Diwali celebration scenes of childhood flashed through my mind, and the common theme across all those scenes was the sheer excitement of the occassion - company of family, the sweets we shared, the crackers we burnt, the prayers we offered and most importantly the time we spent together.It was all about "we", which was not a well-defined single set of people, in each scene i remembered, I could see different friends, family members, relatives and acquaintances appear. And then I remembered Alexander Supertramp of "Into the wild.." and what he said about happiness - Happiness is real only when shared! And I immediately knew why this Diwali felt a forlorn formality, while so many others were truly "Happy Diwali"