Working lunch on Diwali day in USA, specials spread over many Autumn weekends

NEW YORK: It’ll be a working lunch on Diwali day in America.

Wall Street bankers and techies at work in Silicon Valley will be ladling samples of Indian-global cuisine at potluck lunches on Tuesday, 10 November.

“Last year, we brought food from home, it was such a mess carrying gravy dishes on the train, so we’re having none of that this time. Each one pools in $ 10 each and we’re buying lunch,” says Sunil Reddy, a stock broker in downtown Manhattan.

The evening will be equally un-Diwali like; commuters in the East Coast will be consumed by throbbing subterranean trains and deposited at stations near home as the November sky stains black.

What’s nice is that the very next day - Veterans Day, is an official holiday with the ‘option to work’ in most offices. Those willing to let go a day’s billing can knock off.

Weekend Diwali choices

The weekend, though, offers plenty of scope for big, schmaltzy entertainment.

Choose your budget, decide how local you want to get - Kannada Koota, Telugu Associaton or Tamil Sangam and so on; even how raunchy.

All versions are on offer, starting from $ 10.

“A Diwali celebration of exclusivity and debauchery, masquerade Style at Lexicon 226 E 54th St NYC,”

says one of hundreds of Diwali ads plastered on popular local websites.

Jaswant Singh who calls himself ‘Josh’ tells us these parties run every Saturday “because Indians need this.”

New York city shuts down on weekend nights, but rarely shuts up.

Entry fee for the promised ‘debauchery’ Diwali gig is low, crowds are reportedly massive. $10-$15 to get in for “dance and drinks” from 10pm to 4 am to the beat of pounding Bhangra numbers.

Even the White House knows Indians rock - 84 % of Indian Americans who voted have powered Obama’s historic double term as President.

Obama’s Happy Diwali message

Every year since he took office, Obama lights the “White House diya” and looks on

bemused as a pundit recites Sanskrit verses and then folds his palms into a namaste. The very first time he began this trend in 2009, Obama tagged it with an executive order that restored the White House Initiative on Asian Americans, an official vote of confidence in this community’s collective influence on polity.

In the UK too, a similar trend. The Telegraph newspaper has a full pager with extensive links on Diwali in its travel section. Check out this link.

In New Jersey alone, there are 20 Diwali events starting this weekend, starring Alka Yagnik, Unni Menon and other up and coming talents.

A poster with Alka Yagnik looking on from between two microphones and a dozen red roses informs us that RK Video and Wendy Khan will be charging $200 for a “meet and greet dinner” with Yagnik.

For those who prefer low-key, there’s always a “convenient” weekend to have friends over for good food and music, a Patel store round the corner for an immersive kirana store experience and a psychedelic

blast of daals on discount.

The Flexi Diwali

Many Indians meet over Diwali weekend, some don’t sweat it.

“We don’t have a date for this year’s (Diwali) party yet, it’s likely to be in December,” says Sree Sreenivasan, Chief Digital Officer at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Ditto for Chanveen Taneja, who lives near Austin, Texas.

“No idea what we’re going to do this weekend but my kids are sure what they’re going to do for Christmas,” says the mom of three who reads the Guru Granth Sahib on Diwali morning.

What about lamps, those glow in the dark leitmotifs of tradition?

“A couple here and there, not too many,” she says, which is the norm in America because of extremely

flammable and lightweight material used in typical residential construction.

In Maryland, IT program manager for USDA Prashant Paruchuri and his doctor wife Mallika can barely keep their schedule together with two full time jobs, two kids under 8 and a huge pile of DIY laundry that waits. “We pick a house in the neighborhood that’s celebrating Diwali and we crash that party, it’s the best we can do,” says Paruchuri, who grew up in Cherla, a remote village in Telangana.

Florida based techie Phani Raj reaches for his favorite Lakshmi bomb memory from the streets of Bangalore and the “fragrance of new clothes.” Now a Salsa dance nut, Raj says “it feels great to be an Indian celebrating Diwali with so many friends in the US. I feel so proud of our culture.”

Aarathi Venkatesan, who lives in the charming South Orange suburb of New Jersey, analyses the intersect of emotions and reality: “Deepavali is far larger in our minds than in actual practice. We regale our children with stories of how it was for us waking up before the sun, the relentless cacophony of sound, food and people at home, on the street, at the temple — hoping to somehow share with them the bottomless euphoria of that day.”

Aarathi and husband Venkatesh still shop for clothes but “fireworks - not at all.” Such gaps in the immigrant’s Diwali experience are many — boxes on a bucket list from childhood that you can’t check off as ‘done’ or even ‘doable’.Aarathi still makes at least one sweet and savory dish, but  there is no neighborly exchange of treats. There is puja and an oil bath but no waiting for Deepavali specials on telly.

“To those of us who have experienced Deepavali in India, all other celebrations feel somehow unauthentic. But, to our children, who know no other kind of celebration, Deepavali means a party, sometimes more than one, not all on the same day.” says Aarathi.