Divali Lights

And it came to pass that the beast was awakened. Damn good thing too. The beast is the old laptop, humongous great thing in comparison with the new little one, which seems to have caught a chill or some such. At any rate, it's not playing well at the moment.

Yesterday we celebrated a late Divali/early Christmas. Yes, it's that time of year again - used to start with Eid when I was at Mayhem, but here we seem to have more Hindus than Muslims, and boy do they know how to throw a party. We danced to Bangra with Sikhs and we ate various curries until we were sweating spices.

On the darker side of matters Indian, I had an irrational panic during the week. I knew my sister was to be in Mumbai this month sometime, but she hadn't been very specific about when. And I hadn't heard from her. I tried e-mailing, but received no response. I couldn't ring since she is not home during the week. Finally I did get a reply to my frenzied hails, and she was back, safe and sound, but she only missed the horror by a week, and had been staying in the exact hotel, and on the exact floor where many western visitors had been killed. She is shaken. Many of the staff who had been so warm and welcoming to them and made their stay so good, are now dead.

On Friday evening, we had a celebration for the cast and crew of the church play. This also seemed like an opening of the Christmas season, and as a bunch, we determined to challenge sellers of Christmas cards whose products say, 'Happy Holidays'. It's Christmas goddamit! Merry Christmas.