I do not believe I am quite old enough to be reading the obituaries every day the way some people do because they want to know if they outlived a lifelong nemesis. But this year has made me think I have to read them just to decide on what to wear.

You do not want to find yourself in need of funeral gear while you're in your comfy orange house dress and everything black is in the wash and all the white shalwars have been sitting in a state of such crumpledness they look like resting sheep.

This year, this year. Oh God, this year. And it eh done yet. But this year has been taking and taking. And then taking a little bit more.

I lost friends and acquaintances this year. Lost people I admired. I watched people I love grieve people they lost. And my family lost people from the core. From the heart of us.

Now here's the funny part. Every year for almost as long as I can remember, I have dreaded our Divali preparations. There has been wailing. I have had very serious panic attacks when they came around.

But this year I know I will miss all the palaver, not because I shapeshifted into a fairy-light-loving, dying-to-decorate person, but because we will not Divali. Because we cannot. Because when close kin die, you do not Divali. So I want to do it because I can't.

Because for good or ill (and the ill can kill us, truly) there is no comfort like the familiar. And there is no familiar like routine and ritual.

My family's attitude towards Divali is everything that is good. But then you have to crank that good up with the power of muchness. And then you must ask your friends if they know any superlatives you might have missed. It is a lot, I say, as though I were a calm person.

Since adolescence I have been railing. It all seemed so excessive. Adolescents hate two things: feeling like their life is a circus, and chores. Divali was an epic collision of the two.

It's not that I don't get it. I do. There is devotion and there is tradition. And just to fill in any gaps, there is devotion to honouring traditions you may not even care about, but you care about the people who do care about them.

My family's devotion is exquisite. It is gentle and gracious and joyous. It is pure, I think. And so it was that the day of Divali was always the day of my greatest shame. Because on the one day I was at least supposed to try to play nice, all I ever was, was a ball of fury.

Why so much work? Why so many decorations? Why so much food? Why must the napkins be folded this way? Why everything?

Because this is how we do what we do. In its own way, how we celebrate Divali as a family is as much a sacred ritual as any performed at an altar. Rituals of all kinds, for families, communities and individuals, are special and powerful.

Does the action, the object, the time of day have actual significance? Is it magic? That is, sometimes literally, between you and your god. For me, as per the 2003 release by The Darkness, 'I believe in a thing called love.' I believe in people and their intentions. Mostly I believe in their acti