YOOOOOOOOOO….. Sadly there’s not much heat for Diwali here compared to back home. Sigh… What happened to the tubs of muruku and peanut cookies?

Coincidentally it fell on Halloween day today. It’s a little ironic as Diwali was meant to be festival of light and for evil to be warded but then you get people dressing up as zombies walking around the streets in the dark with monstrous decorations everywhere 😂😂😂

So to give you a little light in the dark, HERE’S ME IN MY NEW LEHENGA!

The new lehenga is colourful but it’s actually a little big 😭 because I have unfortunately (or fortunately) lost even more weight. I’m not sure what’s going on but I’m now fitting into almost all my old clothes easily now. Only the Jean shorts from when I was 18 feels a little tight.

ANYWAYYY, I still prefers my old sari. Because it was fitted years ago, it actually is much more fitting. Also the colour is lovely, and I really do love green ❤️❤️❤️

I really love Hindu / Indian culture. My primary school was super local, and we had a lot of Indians, Punjabis, Malay and even indigenous people. To be fair there were only a handful of us Chinese there since it wasn’t a Chinese educated school.

I spent a lot time with my classmate Sutha especially early in the morning because we’re always the earliest to arrive. She taught me how to write her name in Tamil, BUT I COULD NEVER LEARN MY OWN NAME. But I think my name translates to “red ants” or something which was super lame 😂😂😂😂

Another classmate of ours Loga would bring bindi to school and put it on us. She had like the most sexiest husky voice 😂😂 although neither of us realised it at that point of time…. We were such an innocent group of girls.

Whenever Deepavali is near, everyone would start bringing in the muruku that their mom made and share it in school. I can’t actually remember if the school canteen sells it though.

The Indian girls always had beautiful long locks of hair in braids that always seemed to be perfectly oiled. Meanwhile the rest of us comes in random ponytails and most Chinese girls even get their hair cut off like some communist girls camp because our parents were too lazy to deal with it in the morning 😭😭😭

During national day they would usually come in with the cutest lehenga while we get insulted by others in our “sexy” cheongsam 😭😭😭 it’s not our fault that the communist took over China when our ancestors flee and hanfu (our true traditional dress) was forbidden to be worn 😭😭😭. But we were all kids, neither of us know any better. Even we weren’t told our own story, so how could we educate others?

I will always love and reminisce how we were so diverse and yet we were so supportive of each other. One girl with beautiful curls came in completely shaved one day after she donated her hair as a tribute to God. I remember she came in with a cap and we all never saw this happened before and asked her about it. She teared up after a while and one of us just went “it’s just hair, it’s gonna grow back anyway”: and everyone just went nodding and agreeing and told her she looked cool with her cap on. We all went on the year just accepting how she is and never once questioned it.

Fast forward over 25 years after, I still fall in love with shiny bindis and drool at every saree I see. I still love muruku and every Indian snacks I see. But what I can never get back is that feeling of warmth and home I’ve got from all my fellow classmates who welcomed me into their community despite my ignorance.

Thank you for showing me the beautiful side of your culture and tradition my friends. I hope you continue to do so together with your children.