I like Diwali. I like too-sweet kaju katlis in diabetic doses. I like feigning interest in the fact that your two-year-old already uses a fork. Brava! I like meeting relatives I spend the year avoiding only to be reminded why I should avoid them for another. I like complicated card games that force me to consider topping up my Adderall prescription. I’m okay about having to worry about which Indian clothes need to be worn to impress the guests who are still ooing-aaahing at the myth of the fork-wielding two-year-old.
So yes, you could say I possess the festive spirit. I, too, like to burn the midnight ghee. But till 10 o’clock and maybe not all week. Yet my friends behave like a Diwali party is their natural habitat; one might think they were born at the card tables. They’ve certainly been there since. So, before I catch this mahjong epidemic or bite one of the guests, I instead plot ways to save myself for the social-battery-draining marathon that is the festive season. Feel free to help yourself to my sure-fire party-enders:
1. Dim the lights. Soon, your guests will wonder if it is mood lighting or a subtle extinguishing of hope. When subtlety doesn’t work, start putting out the diyas. Announce that Ram found his way home, and maybe they should too.
2. Sabotage the playlist. Switch to ambient tracks, binaural beats, whale songs— anything that induces drowsiness—without actually spiking their drinks with melatonin.
3. Rangoli diplomacy. Write “Go Home” in rani pink on the dance floor. People will admire your attention to detail and simultaneously retreat.
4. Bribe the cops, call it a Diwali bonus. Tip them off about your own party, plant questionable substances if you have to, blame it on a wayward nepo baby. Go the distance. It’s not a complete lie. It’s dim, and even the phuljhari could look like a joint.
5. Circle the card table, stop behind whoever has the largest pile of chips, and inquire if two Aces is good, right?
6. Rig the games. Let them lose spectacularly. Then bet they can’t leave. It’s a win-win.
7. Start cleaning. Nothing empties a room faster than vacuuming with quiet judgement. Enforce that cleanliness is the true spirit of Diwali.
8. Start a firecracker rebellion. Mention how crackers upset the dog. Borrow the neighbour’s Dachshund if you have to.
9. Blame it on the baby. If the infant with the fork is asleep, resurrect him. Get him hopped up on mithai, then unleash both him and his fork on the party at large.
10. Start pretending it’s a reality show and sow seeds of discord. Go up to guests and tell them you don’t believe the rumours going around about them at all and it’s so brave that they came. Slowly start voting them out of the house. Let them know with a marigold and a signature sign-off. “You’ve lost your sparkle, goodbye.”
11. Wear pyjamas. Insist that you are wearing an Indo-Western co-ord set. Gaslight any naysayers. Drape a bedsheet as a dupatta if needed.
12. Mastermind a whodunnit. Switch the theme mid-party to a whodunnit-style hunt for which guest is the income tax raider. Then start announcing how ma’am on the right’s diamonds definitely came from conflict-ridden mines.
Diwali is, at its heart, about light. For me, it’s about the light at the end of the hallway, illuminating the bedroom where I will finally be alone.
