There was a time when I really looked forward to Deepavali. In the beginning, it would mean a long balik kampung trip a week before the big day. My dad would put in a week-long leave, and we would pack tons of clothes and take the journey to Taiping in his old Toyota. It was before the North-South Highway was opened in its entirety. We would be taking all the long, windy roads, passing through small villages, towns that seem to be in the middle of nowhere, old and seemingly abandoned palm oil estates. We would usually stop for lunch at Tapah, where I would usually pester my dad to buy me a toy car before we got in the car and continued our journey to Taiping.

I liked the house in Taiping. It was formerly a mining estate, and there was a really big dredging ship rotting away not far from where my grandfather lived. It was a wooden house, long and wide. The house was so long, in fact, that there was another family living at the back of the house. They were a Christian family, and they had two kids. I still remember their names, Jerome and Priscilla. I was always in their house, save for lunch, dinner and bath-times. I would just go up to the back side, knock on their door and spend the whole day there. We were one big family. We shared everything together. There were times where I would take naps at their house, and they would do the same in my grandfather’s house.

My dad would go to town and buy lots of fireoworks. And on the big day, we would all come out to the courtyard and play our hearts out. Me, Jerome, and Priscilla. The three of us. He was fun. She was cute. I remember she had curly hair. Me and Jerome would always tease her by pulling her skirt up. She would scream out loud, her eyes boling with anger, and it would usually end up with her chasing the both of us around the house. It was a different time back then. It was an innocent time.

Of course, things changed.

We stopped going back. I’m not sure why. Maybe tata was tired of living alone in that house. Maybe he missed his wife too much. I don’t know, and back then, I was too little to care. Tata moved to KL to live with my uncle. I now miss the koay teow stall at the corner of the road. The house was given to Jerome and Priscilla’s family. The dredging ship continued to rot.

I haven’t seen the both of them for more than 10 years now. I wonder how they are.

What is Deepavali to me now?

Honestly, I don’t know. All these obsessive attention to detail. So much preparation for just one day. Slaving away in the kitchen, cooking dish after dish, washing, cleaning, serving the food, repeated again and again, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. I don’t think Deepavali was ever meant to be that way. Something has been lost. In our haste to grow up, to become “productiver members of society”, it seems like we left something behind. Something that reminded us of the simple joys and the simple pleasures. Something as simple as lighting fireworks with your closest childhood friends and having pure, untainted fun.

But then again, nothing is meant to be forever.

Especially innocence.