The air is heavy with excitement of shopping for Diwali and among diyas, sweets, new clothes and lamps, another article is steadily finding its way on the decked up tables; deck of cards – shuffled and ready to be dealt! Yes, apart from being the festival of lights, Diwali is also popularly known as the festival of gaining good fortune (for some) by playing cards. Known to be an auspicious game since times immemorial, card parties in the city have now become a pre-Diwali catch up session at each other’s houses. In the week leading up to the festival, citizens have been getting quirky invitations to friends’ houses for a night of good food, music and fortune! We went on a party hopping spree to see how the dice rolls for Indore…Keeping alive the tradition yet giving it a contemporary zest, the hosts are upping the ante by going for well thought themes for décor of the party. Right from tables laid out with props with symbols like club, heart, spade and diamonds to house of card centrepieces, Indoreans are going the extra mile to spruce up their party venue. Ankit Maheshwari, a young entrepreneur who hosted one such party over the weekend shares, “With working professionals it is just another reason to unwind and catch-up with their group of friends. A themed décor adds to this mood of revelry and gives a good reason to fill up your phone with selfies!” His wife Malvika adds, “While some of the props were bought from market, we fashioned most of it at home, getting DIY ideas off the internet. It took us at least three days to cut out all the shapes and create wall hangings out of it, after we came back from work”. Another essential part of these parties is also the invite, which is getting witty and laden with poker slangs to keep things interesting. “The invite I recently got said ‘its time to pocket rockets and slide with big slicks, so if you’re ready to go all in, meet us’. I had a good laugh over it and at night we had a fun soiree with a few hands and good friends” says Rricha Thakur, a 26-year-old artist.Once known to be a trend among the affluent families only, card parties these days have become fairly common even among college students, even if they make a chillar party out of it! Vishal Raghuvanshi, a third year Bcom student says, “We don’t indulge in poker as such but games like teen patti , rummy and coat piece are popular in student groups. To make things interesting we play with chillar coins. A player, generally the one who is good at Math distributes the coins of various denominations equally among the players. We put in stakes as low as one rupee! After all it’s all for fun”. For working professionals and entrepreneurs who have poker sets at disposal the bets are high. Smriti Sharma, who is an event manager by the day and teen-patti aficionado by the night these days says, “Mostly we have casino themed games like poker and blackjack, but in casual soirees and smaller groups rummy and teen-patti work too. To keep the merriment on, people are keeping stakes low, so that it is not about winning or losing rather the spirit of participating.”As the popular sitcom character Joey from FRIENDS had once said “You can’t serve food with more than one syllable in poker!” Indoreans seem to be taking this advice seriously, as chips, nachos, tikkas and other finger food do rounds of the table as player play their hands. “Most of the parties we’ve been to don’t have more than 30 people. The food thus becomes interesting with a lot of munchies served on platters. Games generally go on way past dinner time, so set meals are out of question” explains entrepreneur Mohit Rajani. For students it’s a party with all things fried and fizzy. “We either take away tandoori platter from kiosks or bring in frozen food which just needs to be fried. There is not much fuss over fancy food as the games keep us busy and with cold drink and appetisers we’re all set!” quips second year BA student Ashwini Lokhande.“It does not matter whether one is a seasoned player or a novice, the whole idea is to catch up with old friends and get to know new people as you have one hand full of cards while the other is busy digging into yummy starters” - Anand Rajan , a cricketer who has been party hopping with his group.According to Hindu mythology, Goddess Parvati and Lord Shiva played a game of dice during one such celebration, and she enjoyed the game so much (must be winning it) that she declared whoever plays a game of dice on Diwali will stay prosperous throughout the year. With time, dice and checkers were substituted with cards for the sake of convenience and fun.Pics: Arpit Joshi

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