FESTIVALS ARRIVE not as mere markers of months but as metaphors— moments where memory and modernity mingle, where ritual rubs shoulders with reinvention, where sugar and spirit join hands in a shimmering dance. Diwali, more than most, demands its drama: lamps that light up lanes, laughter that lingers late, fireworks that fracture the dark, and mithai that melts away melancholy. Sweetness is not an accessory to celebration; it is its spine, its song, its shimmering soul.