The festival arrives before you're ready
Diwali comes, and you are in his house. His mother has made sevaiyan for Eid every year of her life, and she makes it beautifully, and you eat it with genuine gratitude. But tonight there are diyas to light, and you are not sure whether to bring them out, or whether bringing them out is a declaration, a small aggression dressed as tradition. So you don't. You tell yourself it's consideration. It is also erasure.
