Sonali takes 'light'

Get Sonali Bendre talking about Diwali and her first reaction is, "Can I say what I hate about Diwali too?" And then she screams on top of her voice: "I hate fire crackers.

They give me allergy, my dad asthma, my son falls ill and my little sweet Neo (dog) gets super scared. I just hate themu00a0-- they cause so much pollution." With all the gestive angst unbottled, Sonali tells us what she loves about the festival:

Dil toh bachcha hai ji
The best thing about Diwali, apart from the family getting together of course, is the lights. I've always looked forward to lighting the small earthen panti in my balcony, and as a kid, that was my reason for celebrating Diwali. I would argue with my mother to let me light the diyas.



Apart from that, Diwali was more like a vacation during my school days. I didn't like crackers because I thought that burning them was like burning money.

I would rather save all that money and buy myself books to read. So as a child, Diwali was my time to read lots of my favourite book and I associated the festival with wearing new clothes and comparing them to my sisters'.
The teen challenge
Even as a teenager, most of my time during Diwali was either spent helping my mother make sweets or do rangoli outside the house.

Also decorating platters of sweets was my favourite past time during the festive days. But teenage days with my sister were fun, because it was a competition time.

Just a week before Diwali, my sister and I would join my mother in making besan ladoos. And we would fight over whose ladoos were rounder till mom scolded us. Then my sister and I would take two different corners of our door (very often blocking the neighbours path) and compete over whose rangoli was better.

Even after I entered the glamour world, I would make it a point to make rangolis, no matter which part of the world I would be in during Diwali time.

Shaadi ke baad
Since the time I've had a child, the lavish Diwali preparations have shrunk. Even then I do like to make one sweet myself, usually karanjis.

A little bit of fire crackers do happen with Ranveer (son). For us Diwali is mainly about visiting the elders in the family and taking their blessings.

Diwali was a low-key affair this time since Goldie lost his grandfather recently. So we visited Goldie's grandmother and then we went to my parents' place in Andheri.

Who: Sonali Bendre
What: Talking about her Diwali over the years
Where: At a suburban 5-star hotel