An early Diwali in New York yesterday at the South Street Seaport:
It's one of the most upscale Diwali settings I've ever seen, tall ships and a fireworks barge bobbing beneath skyscrapers of robin's-egg blue... Ashen wrappers smelling of gunpowder drifted onto the heads of desi elders who had splayed themselves across the wooden pier steps... A dance troupe on the pier practiced ballroom with shells whistling overhead, a scratchy violin track playing in the background.
