Deepavali— as we call it in Telugu —is my favorite holiday.
Nothing better than lighting candles around the house, decorating the front steps with plastic tea lights, and stringing up repurposed Christmas lights. In my town, people decorate their houses earlier than Christmas because more of them celebrate Diwali. Not all. But most.
I love the fireworks bouncing on driveways and bursting from front lawns. Colorful flowers in the sky to match the rangoli on the ground.
Yesterday morning, one of our neighbors came by.
“Diwali Mubarakan,” he had said. Pakistani. Muslim. And yet, he was the first to greet us that day, a box of sweets in hand.
It reminded me of years ago when in a Whatsapp groupchat that some of our neighbors in our old neighborhood had created all the members had said “Eid Mubarak” even though only one of the families in the chat were Muslim. So what if it were only one?
Later in the afternoon, our other neighbor asked us, “It’s a holiday for you guys today, isn’t it? Diwali?”
Chinese-American. Gujrati distant neice-in-law. He had seen more places in Rajasthan than my family had ever seen across their home country.
It occurs to me now that my parents have spent more years here than there.
Maybe there’s a reason I’ve never felt Indian. Maybe I don’t need to be.
Because for all intents and purposes, in spite of how much we complain about consumerism, and racism, and inflation, and changing government policies, and all the other nonsense that we only care about between the hours we turn on the news channel in the morning to when we turn in for bed in the evening, this is home.
I’ve never celebrated Diwali in India. Never got the chance to. Never had to.
November for me means just enough time to make it home for the weekend, not go overseas.
When my aunts and uncles and grandmothers tell me I should celebrate these festivals in India at least once because it’s different, it’s beautiful, it’s loud in a way that it’ll never be here: I smile half-heartedly and say noncommitaly, “mm-hm”.
But what I really mean is: I like Diwali in America because it’s the only place in the world where a Pakistani-Muslim can say “Diwali Mubarakan” and an Indian-Hindu can say “Eid Mubarak”. Where I can have an opinion on anything and not be instantly condemned, where I can speak my mind, where I can say “I love America because I love the world” and mean it.
I’ve never liked having to choose.
Which is why I choose to be American.
