Is it a happy diwali?

I remember my last diwali: six months out of B school, no real pressure at work, no real worry about where my career was going or what I wanted to do with my life; I had good friends, great colleagues, good balance, and corporate life was just an extension to campus life, except that I had more money, more freedom, and of course a rented apartment!

I remember last diwali: we dressed up in traditional clothes, lit up our place with diyas (me struggling as usual), my roommate suddenly discovered the child in herself as she blew up two grands in fifteen minutes on expensive explosives, and then I went to Pop Tates and got drunk! Ah, our contribution to the economic recovery…

Fast forward to this year: I am in the middle of a personal and professional crisis, I no longer know or care where I am going, my life is turned upside down and so is my house. My roommate of one and a half years, my friend for three years, one of my closest batchmates in Symbi, my fellow bong from Kolkata is moving out as she gets ready to start a new life of her own. As I see her pack up her stuff, as she carries cardboard boxes and suitcases into the car, as she divides up our utensils, and as she digs up old memories, I feel like shrieking out to her, “Don’t go. Let’s not change things. Let’s not move on.”

The transience of life never fails to take me by surprise…nothing is happy about this diwali!