Diwali

During the afternoon, it was deceptively quiet out there.  Not even the call of a vegetable man.
But it was coming.

My street was already lit up in expectation for what was coming.

 In the evening the neighbors lit their candles to light the way to their homes.

 The houses hung with lights, the streets and skies alive with firecrackers.

Diwali is Delhi's biggest party.

Diwali

Happy Diwali.
The neighbors have decorated.
The shops are hung with lights.
The neighbor below me has decorated outside the door and left marks for the spirits to follow.
It's time for Delhi to be overtaken by the Festival of Lights.
The celebration of Diwali includes thousand and thousands of lights, candles and fireworks. Non-stop fireworks from 6pm until well after 1am. That's a lot of fireworks. And a lot of smoke and trash when it's all over.
Diwali is a loud holiday.
See some of the festivities and the "safety precautions" taken as traffic passes by:

4th of July

I went to the Fourth of July celebration at the embassy.
Interesting. American, yet still India.
For one thing, the very tall "Uncle Sam", was an Indian circus performer hired for the evening.
The marines brought out the flag and the national anthem was sung. There were fireworks and hamburgers (very odd for India) and apple pie and the very rare A&W root beer (wish there had been Dr.Pepper).
Something that could have been scheduled better were the fireworks that happened before dark and the picnic games that happened after dark.
There was a watermelon eating contest, three-legged races, pie eating contest, and tug of war. One of the tug-of-war battles was between the very few (seven) marines and several dozen children. The marines lost.