Halloween in a foreign land

United states of America has a few traditions that it can call it's own. The country is also home to millions of immigrants that it has embraced over several years. Even after generations of assimilation, many immigrants are not able to fully comprehend and embrace all of the traditional festivals of their father country. When I came into the country as a starry eyed young adult alien many of these traditions baffled me too. Why wait till thanksgiving to get together with family? Why should we donate new unopened gifts to the poor. Where I came from, they used happily take used anything and yet people tried to pass down the hand me downs till they got worn out instead of donating. Why have father's day and mother's day and wish them only on that day? But one festival made sense right from the first time.

It was a chilly night, onset of winter. We had left the porch lights on because that is what we do, lest goddess Lakshme see our dark uninviting entrance and turn her back. Two tikes came knocking on my door and screamed trick or treat. I turned my head to look at my husband with a puzzled expression. He asked me to dole out some chocolates and they screamed 'happy halloween!' and left. I was even more clueless now. In a country where you have to be careful about even making eye contact with children of strangers, why are kids coming home to home and taking whatever junk is being handed out to them, from strangers? Nevertheless as the word spread that "Ferrero Rocher" is being handed out I got more and more of them young things all dressed up and trying_to_be_scary_but_ended_up_looking_cute bunch. In a place with no relatives and few friends I ended up having the time of my life. For once I connected to a foreign festival almost instantly.

I grew, had kids, the land, the customs grew on me. Halloween was the most special. It reminded me of the festival Sankranthi, back home where me and my sisters used to get decked up and went from home to home exchanging 'yellu-bella'. This was even more fun, the kids had to just dress up and their candy would be handed to them. This one also had the added advantage of no gender bias. And then came the time to return back to our roots. There were tons of things I would miss, Halloween featured among the top few items at that time.

Again a chilly night, onset of winter. I read a email from the cultural committee of my housing complex asking kids to assemble at a certain common place for Halloween in the late evening. I was thrilled. To top it, the next day of Halloween was Kannada Rajyotsava, a guaranteed holiday in Karnataka. With no tension of next day's school or office I ran behind my over excited kids to the common place. There were dozens of those little young faces that I see everyday. The kids went knocking the doors of the houses of well known neighbors and not strangers and there were enough of them to tire your feet. The kids had a blast while the parents chatted up on the latest whatever_was_bothering_them at that point. As we came home and spread out all the collected sugary loot along with our really tired legs, I looked at the excited and happy faces of my kids and felt happy and grateful for that little piece of fatherland that we got here with us.

The sisterhood of hand me downs.

It is that time of the year again when my son just turned a year older. My mental alarm for an yearly ritual I  do keeps going off. The ritual of sorting his clothes into inheritable and non-inheritable stacks, the ritual of washing and stacking it into a neat cardboard box labelled with the son's name and age.

 As I sort each piece, I can't help the trip down the memory lane. The pajama with colored sketch pen stains remind me of the time when he colored all over the place including himself, all over the place except for the clean white sheet that he was supposed to color on. There is this another jacket which became his favorite for no particular reason. It was so worn out by use that I had to sneak it out of his wardrobe and pretend I did not know what he was talking about when he kept asking for it. The most emotional one was of-course the reminder of  how many people loved him enough to present him with clothes which had his favorite characters, maybe something funny written on it which was so apt, his favorite colors and styles.

This is not just a box of clothes, this is a box of memories that will be passed along from head to head, from brother to brother, cousin to cousin. Every mother who does this ritual eliminates the old and stained from the stock and adds her own fresh new collection ensuring a box full of nice clothes will be passed on to the next kid in line.

As I seal in the box to be placed in the garage, I also give mental thanks to the humility of my sisters and sisters-in-law who accept my box with all their heart despite of being able to afford a whole closet of  new ones probably of their own choice. I thank them not only because they are helping me recycle the clothes, they are helping me recycle something much more precious than that. As I see the little tykes spring around doing unmentionable things in what once used to be my child's favorite pants and shirts, I realize they are helping me recycle my memories.