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Last night, the ghats at Dashashwamedh: evening aarti, the bells, the river full of little floating lamps. Seventy-one years old, and in my dreams I am still nine and holding my father's hand.

Japa has a boundary condition

Morning japa on the streetcar: 108 beads, 'Om Shri Matre Namah' on each one, mala tucked in my coat pocket because it's already minus two and I value my fingers. Something my amma taught me that I love: when you reach the meru, the larger guru bead, you don't cross over it. You turn the mala around and go back the way you came. As a software tester, I find this deeply satisfying. It's a boundary condition. You never run off the end of the array. Devi has excellent error handling.

Kheer under the moon on Sharad Purnima

Sharad Purnima is almost here, the night the moon is said to shine with all sixteen of its kalas, and in my house that means one thing: kheer under the moon. You make rice kheer slowly, with full-fat milk, a little cardamom and a few strands of saffron. Then the bowl goes out on the balcony for a few hours in the moonlight, covered with fine muslin so the moonlight gets in and the insects don't. It's offered first, then shared, and everyone swears it tastes sweeter. In Bengal they say Lakshmi walks the earth that night asking 'Ko jagarti?' Who is awake? My grandchildren are determined to be awake this year. I give them until 10:30.

A thousand names after a failed build

Release night. The regression suite failed at 6:47pm with 312 errors, and I am the one who has to explain why. So at 10 I lit the lamp (brass, on a steel plate, nowhere near the curtains; my mother trained me well), sat in front of my little Devi picture, and began the Lalitha Sahasranama. A thousand names takes me about forty minutes. Somewhere around name 400 my shoulders came down from my ears. She is called Shri Mata, the auspicious mother. Tonight she was also the one who reminded me the build is not my whole life. The errors are still there. I'm just not drowning in them anymore. Tomorrow: debug. Tonight: kumkum on my forehead and sleep.

Chai, the way my mother argued about it

Every family in India has a chai recipe and every family is wrong except yours. Here is mine, which is my mother's, which she defended against my father for forty-one years. For two cups: one cup water, one cup milk. Bring the water up with a thumb of ginger, crushed (not grated, she was very firm), four green cardamom pods cracked open, a small piece of cinnamon, two cloves and three black peppercorns. Add two spoons of strong Assam and a few tulsi leaves from the pot on the windowsill. Pour in the milk and let it rise three times, pulling it off the heat each time before it boils over. Sugar to taste, then strain. The first small cup goes to the little Krishna on my puja shelf. He has never once complained about the ginger. My father, on the other hand...

Nine steps, three hundred dolls, one patient husband

Navratri started last night, which means our living room is no longer a living room. It is a golu. For anyone who didn't grow up with it: in many Tamil homes we build a set of steps (always an odd number, we do nine) and cover them with dolls. Gods and goddesses on the top step, then saints, then people going about their lives, then animals and little village scenes at the bottom. The idea, as my paati explained it, is the whole of creation climbing toward the Divine Mother, one step at a time. My marapachi dolls, the carved wooden bride and groom, came from my grandmother's house in Mylapore in a suitcase, wrapped in my old school uniform. They go up first, every year, before anything else. This year my husband built new steps out of shelving because the old cardboard ones finally gave up. He measured three times. I love him. Every evening for nine nights we light the lamp, I recite the Lalitha Sahasranama (slowly, the 7pm version, not the heroic 5am version), and whoever visits goes home with sundal and a little bag of betel leaf, kumkum and a bangle. Our Canadian neighbours come every year now, and their daughter has formally requested a cricket player doll for the bottom step. She has been told the cricket player must sit next to the cows. If you keep a golu, post your steps. I want to see everyone's dolls.

The boatman who knew my name

A story my grandchildren ask for every Diwali, so I'll tell it here too. I was nine, in Varanasi, and I'd wandered away from my family at the ghats during the evening aarti. Thousands of lamps, bells, conch shells, and one small lost boy crying near the steps. An old boatman with a white beard and eyes like river stones crouched down and said, 'Arjun, your mother is at Dashashwamedh, near the third umbrella.' Then he went back to his boat. I had never seen him before. I hadn't told him my name. She was exactly there, at the third umbrella, frantic. When we went back to thank him, the other boatmen said nobody like that worked that stretch of the river. Sixty-two years I've wondered. Maybe a kind man who overheard my mother shouting. Maybe Ganga Ma looking after her own. Either way, I bow to the river every time I think of it.

Two birthdays, one of them set by the moon

Amma texted at 5:10am: 'Today is your star. Go to temple if you can.' In our Tamil family your birthday isn't only the date on the calendar. It's also the day the moon returns to your birth nakshatra in the month you were born. Mine is Revathi. Growing up in Toronto I found this mortifying. Two birthdays, and one of them moved every year. Now I love it. The Gregorian one gets cake and coworkers. The star one gets an archana on my lunch break, the priest chanting my name and my star, a phone call with Amma, and a quiet hour of feeling claimed by something much older than me. If you've never asked your elders what star you were born under, ask. It's a very good excuse for a phone call.

In my family, when nobody can decide, we do chits. Write each choice on a slip of paper, fold them the same way, place them before Ganesha with a flower, say a prayer, and let the youngest child in the room pick one. This weekend it was my sister's question: rent the flat near work, or the one near Amma. Two chits, one jasmine strand, a little ghee lamp, and my four-year-old nephew, who took this responsibility extremely seriously and picked one with both hands. Near Amma. My sister pretended to be neutral, but she was smiling before she even unfolded it. Ganesha removes obstacles, including the obstacle of pretending you haven't already decided.