The dreaded day will arrive shortly and I will become 60. How and when did this happen??  “It is only a number,” people say. Well, I used to say it too. But it’s a number with a 6 in it. And I still feel the way I felt when I was 40. Heck, when I was 20! Anyway, I’m determined not to feel, let alone, act like one is supposed to when one becomes a senior citizen.

But there is one happy coincidence. Unusually, Diwali and my birth date coincide this year. The calendar date had meant nothing to my mother. For her, my birthday was always on Diwali day. So this festival has a special significance and nostalgia for me – all associated with my mother.

Living away from my country and culture since 1978 in a first very Japanese and then a very English atmosphere where I hardly knew any Indians, meant that Diwali came and went, and gradually I did not even know when the day was. One year, 2000 I think, I was in an Indian hostel in London doing a postgraduate diploma in language teaching, when I came back one cold night, worn out and a bit lonely and homesick to find the staff serving a sweet with dinner. I asked them why the special sweet and still remember the sickening feeling like someone had punched me in the pit of my stomach when the man  said, “Diwali sweets Madam. Happy Diwali.”

But this year I’m in Bangalore and will celebrate Diwali with my English husband. I washed the puja space and all the little gods and lamps I have displayed in readiness. I will light the lamps with freshly made ghee like my mother used to. I will buy flowers from the wonderful woman in Yelahanka who always insists I put flowers in my hair and refuses to take money for it. I’ve started braiding my hair after about 30 years just so I don’t refuse her. And now I find I love to have jasmine in my hair. Again, reminds me of my mother.

Yes, Diwali is really about my mother. Here I live in a penthouse in Bangalore, but we used to live in a lovely house in Jayanagar in Mysore. As children, Diwali was exciting – and not just because it was my birthday which we did not really celebrate. The festival we did. And how! It would start two weeks before the festival when my mother would start preparing the savouries and then the sweets. Rows of steel dabbas in the store room filled with mouth-watering goodies – barfis, laddus, Mysore pak, kajjaya, chaklis, tenkolu, khara sev, kod bale, bhoondi, etc. etc.- which we were not allowed to touch until the morning of the puja. A few days before, she would start cleaning the glorious puja room. All the silver and brass would be polished. The day before, she would draw beautiful colourful rangoli on the steps of the puja room where the gods, lamps and all the accessories were then arranged.

Oh yes, not to forget the bathroom! Jiji (that is what we called our mother) would decorate the huge hande housed in cement, and light it with firewood the night before. She would wake us up before dawn and rub our hair with coconut oil. Then came the torture. We had to try and sit quietly while she girded up her sari and hurled hot water at us and scrubbed our hair with soapnut powder. Only now do I think of what this must have cost her in energy and determination.

After we were all washed, came the calm. The puja. Though not very religious, I still loved this part. It was peaceful and calming and I can still see the glowing flames in the pools of ghee glinting in the silver lamps. Trays of fruit and flowers piled in front of the gods, themselves smothered in garlands, kumkum, haldi and chandan; the almost overpowering and intoxicating smell of the incense mixed with the heady scent of the flowers, and the glorious colours created magic. Oh, and let us not forget the tray containing samples of all the varieties of goodies finally released from their dabbas.

After the prayers, the aarati and the puja, we had our share of the offering to the gods. I can still taste the banana covered with ghee, crushed jaggery, coconut and honey. I could never have enough of this and always stretched my hand out for a second helping, licking my palm clean every time. It’s funny, but I used to make this as dessert in England and my guests loved it too!

And then it was time for the patakis, the crackers. There was a budget and the crackers were divided among we three children: 10 flower pots, six bhoomi chakras, six vishnu chakras, four packets of short hand-held sparklers, two packets of long hand-held sparklers, rockets for the adults etc. etc. We each took turn to light just a few in the morning to start the day and then saved the rest for the night.

Oh the night! We lived in a two-storied house with the compound wall running all around, and a large enveloping terrace. We lit hundreds of mud lamps (or so it seemed then),  arranging them all along the wall and the terrace. Looking from the outside, the house was dotted and outlined with undulating tongues of flame and looked a picture. To this day the beautiful simple mud lamps remain my favourite and this year I will be lighting some on my apartment terrace too.

I lost my mother many many years ago but I am grateful to her for so many things. And as this Diwali comes around, I want to tell her how grateful I am for the memories of my childhood. Happy Diwaili, Jiji, because I know you are seeing this.

And a happy, peace-filled, prosperous Diwali to all my family, friends and readers.

Rani Rao Innes is the senior partner and lead trainer of Link Communications, a specialized communications skills company based in the UK. She has regularly presented courses and training workshops for private and public business sectors as well as students and teachers in the UK, Belgium, Malaysia, Japan and India. She has also been active in theatre for 30 years and was the director of Canterbury Players in Kent for eight years.