Diwali Cleaning

With Diwali sneaking from the corner, all housewives have begun cleaning the house, or getting it whitewashed, carrying out repairs/renovations, in short decorating the house to welcome Goddess Lakshmi. Inviting the Goddess into the household and creating proper surroundings to woo her to make it her permanent abode requires a lot of effort. The house should be spic and span, there has to be peace and harmony in the house, good food should be offered to her (who says way to only men's heart is through his stomach??) Lots of poojas are done to entreat her to enter the house and bring good fortune and prosperity in the household.

I have been hearing about all these since I was a child. My mom used to clean the house, make mouth watering dishes, create intricate and beautiful rangoli at the doorstep, and light diyas at night. (to make sure lakshmiji didn't miss the house due to darkness courtesy Gujarat Electricity Board....Baroda - my hometown is infamous for electricity playing truant even at meteorological department's mere forecast of rain, and at ALL other occasions.)

Despite having learned all this since I was a child, I don't believe all these is done for Laksmiji. I think the real purpose of this kind of thorough cleaning of the house in ENTIRELY different. I truly believe that the purpose of cleaning, renovating, refurbishing of the house, in short getting everything upside down is to locate many many things that we misplace during the whole year. We tend to misplace things and then when we try to locate them at most likely places, we are more often than not unable to find them. Diwali cleaning affords us an opportunity to find missing/misplaced things from unlikeliest of places. And this, according to me is the real purpose of Diwali cleaning.

I too have undertaken the herculean task of cleaning the house for Diwali....I started yesterday and in just two days I have rediscovered a lot of things that had gone missing since last year and had looked for them all over.

You may, or may not agree with me now, but after Diwali cleaning is over, and after you find all that had gone missing in the last year, you will definitely ponder over what I have written, and I am sure most of you will agree to agree with me!!