Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and good fortune, lives with the stars in the sky but she loves to look down and see lights twinkling on earth as well. So, to please her, once a year on Divali day – which fell on a dark New Moon day in November – we were in the habit of decorating the outside of our home with tiny oil lamps.

It was not just the outside that we decorated. Lakshmi demanded that the entire house sparkle with cleanliness and beauty. This kind of demand suited my father just perfectly. He enjoyed everything to do with improving the house. He used the time just before Divali not only to get the house painted but to add a room here, a courtyard there, and a verandah somewhere else. Divali, which came in late autumn, was, of course, the best time to do this. The monsoons were over and a brisk, sunny winter was about to begin.

Scores of workmen would descend upon the house and begin to scrape doors, window frames and walls. Meanwhile, we would all pore over shade charts, picking out different colours for different rooms. I remember one year, when I was about five, we picked the newest shade on the shade chart, mauve, for the children’s study, with mouldings to be painted in gold.

I had never heard of the colour mauve before. I went around saying, ‘mauve, mauve,’ to the parrots that flew over our garden and to my friends who raced tricycles with me. The word was so new and exciting. When the study was finished, we were sure it would win Lakshmi’s approval.

Divali day was a holiday for the whole country. While I tied a fresh ribbon in my hair, thousands of tiny oil lamps were lined along the parapet of our roof and on every windowsill, doorway and ledge. Nothing was lit until after evening prayers – and after my mother had told us the Divali story. By this time it would be quite dark. We would run outside and begin lighting the lamps, one by one.

Soon the whole house would be glittering, as would our neighbour’s house and the house next to that. The whole country was probably glittering, just like our neighbourhood. Then it was time for the fireworks. My father would aim a fiery rocket towards the sky. I would take a long sparkler, stand in the middle of the lawn and then turn round and round and round until I seemed encircled by my very own glow.