For a family like ours, that has lost many of its traditions and a significant amount of culture over the past few generations (2 immigrations in 5 generations tends to do that!) I do try to let my kids have some understanding and experience of their rich cultural heritage. By doing so I learn a bit more myself.

Diwali, the Indian Festival of Light, is one of the times that I remember fondly from my childhood. My aunt and my grandmother, all working together in the kitchen to produce some of the most mouth-watering, decadent sweet treats from old family recipes. While they worked for days in the heat of the kitchen, we would run through trying to pilfer a favourite here and there, get scolded, and unabashedly try again.

On the day we would receive new clothes, get dressed in our best, package up all the sweets into festive plates of goodies and take them to family, friends and neighbours as a gesture of goodwill. In the evening we would light the clay lamps along the verandahs and strive valiantly to ensure none were blown out by the winds. Inevitably in Durban, it was always rainy or windy on Diwali.

The best part of the evening were the fireworks. My grandfather used to buy boxes of them well in advance for all the grandkids. Roman candles, Tom-Thumbs and a host of others that whizzed, swirled, popped, or simple exploded overhead in magical showers of light.

As many of the foods made on Diwali are only made on this one occasion each year, I took the opportunity to photograph some of the sweets. I was supposed to be packaging up the plates but instead I was trying to make the most of the fading light, my mother’s dining room table (already overflowing with trays of food) to capture the colour, the richness and the variety to share. And if you think they look good, the flavour is indescribable…

Happy Diwali everyone!

Posted by Netra on Oct 17th 2009 | family - personal - photography
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