By Lakhram Bhagirat
On what is described as the darkest night in the year, Hindus celebrate the auspicious occasion of Diwali, and the epic that goes with this festival states that it was the night Shree Ram, along with his wife, Sita, and brother Lakshman returned home to Ayodhya after 14 years of exile. It goes on to say that as the people in the Kingdom of Ayodhya prepared for the arrival of their beloved Shree Ram, they lit the pathways with little earthen lamps so as to illuminate the dark path to the palace.
That is the story I have been hearing for the past 27 years, every Diwali, and the memories associated with the festival are some of my most cherished. As a child and well into my adolescent years, I would go to the side of the trench and collecting mud (clay) and rolling it in some sand (for what reason I don’t know) and then sitting beside my grandmother as she demonstrated how to make the perfect diya to light later that night.
Every Diwali morning, my grandmother, Margaret, would sit with her bucket of mud and make her diyas to light. We would sit with her, but rather than being helpful, we would create a ruckus, which often resulted in us being shooed away. But no matter how much she shooed us away, we would look at how effortlessly she would shape and smooth those little masterpieces.
She was a hero and the best diya maker we had ever known. As we grew up, we would sit with her and make our own versions of diyas and leave them out to bake in the sun for the day while we went ahead helping mommy prepare the sweetmeats and treats for the feast later in the night.
While she was alive, my grandmother would usually make about 10 mud diyas which she would place at the altar in her house, at the bridge and at the Shiva Mandir in the yard. She would always say that those were the most important places as we pray for our homes to be blessed with the presence of Shree Ram. Not a year would go by without us having at least three such diyas every Diwali.
We relished making them and getting the finest mud as well as vying for grandma’s approval. No matter how many cracks we had in our diyas or how deformed they were she always gave us a thumbs up for effort and would reluctantly allow us to light them later in the evenings along with others. Those are the memories about Diwali I treasure to this day.
Most people, in my area, would use store-bought clay diyas for Diwali and just dispose of them the day after in the trench as they would dissolve over time. That is also practised by my family since the task of making mud diyas is considered tedious. However, in my village, there was one particular household that used only mud diyas when it was Diwali.
It was located a few yards away from where I live and as a child, I used to be mesmerised by the sight of Uncle Bango sitting under the cashew tree at the front of his yard for hours rolling mud and shaping them into the most perfect diyas.
As times progressed and development became rapid in my community, we lost that tradition. Now when it is Diwali, everyone goes to the supermarket and buys the clay diyas and pre-rolled cotton wicks and just lights away. Another thing that is becoming popular is the wax diyas which reduce the mess of using the coconut oil or ghee to light diyas.
As for my family, after my grandmother died in 2011, no one had the courage to make mud diyas and now we just do not do it anymore. I am also not sure when Uncle Bango stopped making his diyas at the front of his yard, but for the past two Diwalis, I have not seen him doing that.
However, I am told that there are certain parts of Guyana where the Hindu community has not lost the tradition of making the little earthen lamps and for that I am happy. Those little lamps signify so much. They have the ability to instantly shed light and brighten where they are placed.
