Come evening, we would be witness to the misplaced bravado of our older cousins and friends launching ‘rockets’ by hand.  The ‘victims’ of these rockets would usually be the richer neighbors with the bigger houses – all in good spirit, mind you.  And, how innovative is the child’s mind that thinks of embeding a fire-cracker in freshly laid cow dung!?

And, the finale would be this family with a lot more cash to burn than you bursting a 10K ’sara’ (Kannada word meaning string); the cacaphony lasting a good 20 minutes with the whole street counting down the end of Diwali.

Here are some pics from Rishi’s first Diwali.  No fireworks for him, just yet.

• Pitch inspection – Send youngest cousin over to check the playing field (menu, dessert, whats hot)
• Is the pitch ready? – table set?
• Batting paradise – great food, even better service
• Spinning deck – watch out for a couple of items on the menu, play it easy
• Bouncers/Beamers – May get hurt if you don’t watch it. ie, a particular menu item (or two) has to be eaten in moderation. Also doubles for ‘not so good service’. Typically frowned upon when used to describe close family members that are serving. Ok (even encouraged) to make fun of distant cousins, etc.
• Land mine – might as well be eating the plantain leaf that Karnataka food is served on
• 2nd (or, any integer) Innings – 2nd Course
• Not out, Carried the bat through – cleaned up plate, not a morsel to be seen on leaf/plate.
• Slog – eating quite hurriedly (eating in this manner when late for a meeting or some other official appointment is just rude, ain’t no slogging)
• Clean bowled – poor eating performance. if one performs badly consistently, he/she may become an outcast
• First ball duck – Bowled over (see above item) with the first item served. Terrible.
• Double century – incredible performance, a rarity

If some of these terms just don’t make sense, check out this glossary.

And, here are some pictures from our Bangalore trip: