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New Year’s Eve Traditions Through the Eyes of Women of Color
More culture. Less capitalism.
Growing up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where being Indian was so rare that my classmates were more likely to think I was Native American than South Asian, Indian clothes were brought out only once a year — like how I imagined our White neighbors would bring out their nice china for Christmas dinner.
When my sister and I were toddlers, we had tiny baby lehengas — traditional Indian dresses with full skirts and cropped blouses. Hers was light green with gold checks, and mine had a full red skirt and a tiny green halter top. Pretty soon, the once floor-length skirts were wading around our calves, and when we made a long-anticipated trip to India, we picked out matching silk ones in different shades of orange. They were so special that when we returned to Iowa, we would sometimes take them out from my sister’s bottom dresser drawer just to run our fingers over the elaborately beaded borders.
On the evening of Diwali, my younger sister and I would don these lehengas to celebrate the Hindu New Year, doing a short puja (or prayer) in my sister’s closet, which doubled as our in-home prayer room. We didn’t know the words to the devotional bhajans, so we would be tasked with continually ringing a small brass ghanta, or ritual bell, while our mother recited…
