Underneath
What's going on underneath #
Three things that tend to sit under the words.
Many people far from home spend festival days quietly comparing two pictures: the one on the screen and the one around them.
For a lot of people, belonging was learned on festival days.
Underneath, a belief can form: “The day only counts if I'm there with them.”
Reactions
What people often do #
- Keep the call cheerful, then sit quietly holding the phone afterwards
- Skip the call this year, because it hurts less not to watch
- Cook the festival dish alone, even if it tastes different
- Work an extra shift so the day passes like any other
- Scroll family photos again and again late into the night
The deck
The story in 6 cards #
Six short cards, from the moment to letting go.
Diyas on the screen, a quiet flat
Diwali night in a studio flat in Al Nahda. Your mother's video call comes through at eight. The courtyard back home is full of diyas, cousins crowding the screen, someone holding up a plate of kaju katli. Then Mummy says, 'Sab hain, bas tum nahi ho.' You laugh and say next year, pakka. The call ends, and the flat is very quiet. The one lamp on your windowsill flickers.
Only counts if I'm there
First, plainly: those words were love, and they aren't a verdict that you've stopped belonging. But a rule can grow out of moments like this, and it becomes yours: 'The day only counts if I'm there with them.' It sounds like loving home. But look at what it does: every festival away turns into a day you have already lost before it begins.
Where belonging used to live
We hold a rule like that because festivals were where belonging lived. The best seat saved, your name called from the kitchen, being counted in without anyone saying so. Wanting that again isn't silly or weak. It comes from loving your people and wanting to stay close to them across all the distance. That wish deserves kindness, not blame. Most people far from home carry some of it.
Festivals spent in the photos
The costs are small, and they add up. The festival gets spent in the photos instead of the room around you. A colleague's dinner invite gets a polite maybe. The dish you cooked goes half-eaten because it tastes different. You smile on the call and feel heavy after it. Year by year, festivals start to feel like something to get through rather than something that still belongs to you.
Is the comparing worth it?
Ask yourself honestly: has holding this rule ever brought you closer to that courtyard? Or has it mostly made the day here feel empty? The missing is real, and it shows how much you love them. The lamp on your windowsill is real too. Take a moment with it, if you like. Is holding this rule so tightly worth what it costs you on festival days?
Both pictures can be true
Letting go doesn't mean the distance doesn't hurt, or that a small festival is the same as home. It means the day in front of you gets to count. You can miss them and still light the lamp, eat the sweet, say yes to dinner here. One festival at a time, you can let both pictures be true. That's where some peace comes back: you still belong, from here.
If being far from home ever comes with someone holding your papers or pay, threats, or feeling frightened or watched where you live, that is worth taking seriously.
The flip
The old rule, and a new one to try #
The old ruleThe day only counts if I'm there with them.
A new rule to tryI miss them, and the day here still counts.
For next time
Try it next time #
- Step 1
Light one small thing for the festival, just for you
- Step 2
After the call, take three slow breaths before the photos
- Step 3
Name one warm moment from today that happened here
Want to talk it through?
“Which festival smell or sound would you bring here, if you could bring only one?”
Free and private. No sign-up to start. The chat opens with this question.
Everything this deck knows
Go deeper #
What it sounds like, where it comes from, what it costs, and other ways to see it. Every question opens a chat on it.
How it lands
What was said
A loving line on a festival evening #
Diwali evening, a phone held up in a courtyard full of diyas, or Eid morning with the whole table laid out. The camera swings from face to face, someone waves a plate of sweets at the screen, and then it comes: “Everyone's here, only you're missing!”
It is said with love, usually by the person who misses you most. Nothing in it is meant to hurt. And still, for many people far from home, it is the line that stays after the call ends and the little room goes quiet again.
When did you last hear it, or something close to it?
Where were you standing when the call came, and what was around you once the screen went dark and the festival carried on without your voice in it?Talk about this ›
The first few seconds
A smile on the call, a lump after it #
Some people feel it as a lump in the throat they talk straight over. Some smile wider for the camera, hold the phone a little further away, and say “Next year, pakka.” Others feel a sudden heaviness the second the call disconnects. None of that is being too soft.
Festivals carry years of memory in them: the smell of the kitchen, the noise of cousins, the clothes laid out the night before. A single line can bring all of it back at once, while your body is standing in a flat where none of it is happening today.
What did your body do in the moment the words came?Talk about this ›
Did you laugh, go quiet, or change the subject to the food?Talk about this ›
What might that first reaction say about how much this day still means to you?Talk about this ›
Why it lands
It names the empty place out loud #
A festival is one of the few days a family counts who is there. A line about who is missing names the one empty place, and it is your place. Even said warmly, it can sound like proof that the day has gone on without you.
Many people far from home spend festival days quietly comparing two pictures: the one on the screen and the one around them. The words land in the gap between those pictures, and that gap can feel wider on a festival day than on any ordinary Tuesday.
If you set the two pictures side by side, which part of the home one do you miss most?Talk about this ›
Is it the people, the noise, the food, or simply being counted in without anyone having to mention it?Talk about this ›
The voice inside
When the missing turns into a verdict #
Hear it often enough, and a quieter line can start up inside: “I'm the one who isn't there.” “It's not really Diwali for me anymore.” “They've stopped expecting me.” It can switch on with a single family photo arriving in the group.
Your family has probably moved on to the next round of sweets by now, but the sentence keeps running, and it starts to sound like plain fact. That is what makes it hard to spot: missing someone and being left out can begin to feel like the same thing.
Whose voice is it when it says you don't belong at the table anymore?Talk about this ›
Is it really your family's, or one that grew up on its own in the quiet after the call?Talk about this ›
Where it comes from
Where it can come from
For many, festivals were where belonging lived #
For a lot of people, belonging was learned on festival days. It was the cousin who saved you the best seat, the aunt who knew exactly how you liked the sweets, the way your name was called from the kitchen without anyone needing to look up.
Some families also carried an unspoken idea that festivals are when you show up, whatever else is going on. The reasons vary, and many are tender ones. What a person can quietly conclude from it is that being away on the day means slipping out of the circle.
When did a festival first feel like the day that proved you belonged?Talk about this ›
Who made it feel that way, and does any of that feeling still find you now, even from far away?Talk about this ›
The belief under it
A quiet rule that can settle underneath #
Underneath, a belief can form: “The day only counts if I'm there with them.” A sharper version says, “If I'm away on the festival, I'm slipping out of the family.”
Rules like this rarely feel like rules. They feel like simply knowing what a festival is, the way the floor feels like the floor. That is exactly why they are worth taking out and looking at gently in daylight, once the lights and the calls are over.
Some people trace a rule like this back to childhood festivals; some don't. Either way, it can be looked at: if belonging only happens at that table, then every year away is a year lost.
Where does that fit, and where not?Talk about this ›
What it costs
What it costs
What the rule can cost on the day #
It can mean a festival spent watching instead of living: the whole day measured against a courtyard thousands of kilometres away. Some people stop marking the day at all where they are, because a small version only seems to prove how much is missing.
There is a quieter price too. A friend from work invites you over for Eid lunch or Diwali dinner, and you go, but half of you stays on the phone. The warmth in that room, which is real and is here, gets counted as second best before it has had a chance.
Not out of weakness. It is tiring to spend a whole festival comparing.
What has the rule cost over the last few festival days: a dinner you left early, a sweet you didn't make, an evening spent mostly in the photos?Talk about this ›
If it stays as it is
Five more festivals by the old rule #
Picture one festival day a few years from now, on a year when “it only counts if I'm there” is loud. What is in it: the call, the flat, the photos, the invitations here? It's only a picture to look at, nothing to fix.
Perhaps a phone propped against a glass, a dish made and left half-eaten, a friend's dinner invite answered with “maybe next time,” and the group chat scrolled until late. Maybe a festival quietly skipped altogether, to save the ache.
Nothing here needs an answer yet, and the picture can be put down whenever you like. What, if anything, do you notice when you look at it?
Another way to see it
Another way to see it
Missing, or still counted? #
The words about who is missing can be heard as a list of who is absent. It can also be heard another way: they noticed. In a crowded courtyard on a noisy evening, someone stopped to say your name and hold the phone up so you could see the lights.
People don't usually say a name on a festival evening unless that person still has a place, kept warm, even across all the distance.
Ask gently: does missing someone mean they are out of the family, or that they are very much still in it?Talk about this ›
Another way in: if a close friend told you they spent their festival alone after that call, what would you want them to hear?Talk about this ›
Would you tell them they had stopped belonging, or something kinder?Talk about this ›
Noticing it sooner
What shows up when people look closer #
When people replay the call slowly, some notice how many people waved, how many said “we miss you,” how long the phone was passed around. In the moment, only the word missing seemed to stay; looking back, the call was full of being wanted.
Others notice the small festival that was happening where they were too: a neighbour's string of lights on the next balcony, a colleague's message, the smell of the one dish they did cook. Those things were quiet, but they were there.
Which small piece of the festival reached you this time, however tiny?Talk about this ›
And what would a fair account of the day look like if that piece got counted as well, not just the table you couldn't sit at?Talk about this ›
Making peace with it
No need to make it the same day #
Making peace with a festival far away doesn't mean pretending you don't miss home, or that the distance is nothing. It means the day in front of you gets to count as a real day, even if it looks nothing like the one on the screen.
Some people find it lighter once they stop trying to recreate the whole festival and let it be a smaller, different one. One lamp, one dish, one call, one friend. Measured against home, it can feel thin. Measured on its own, it can be quite warm.
What would it be like to let this year's festival be its own version, with the missing allowed in it, but not running the whole evening?Talk about this ›
A truer sentence
A truer sentence for the festival #
If “It doesn't count unless I'm there” has been running for years, there's no need to argue with it on the day. Some people keep a truer sentence ready instead: “I miss them, and I still belong.”
It doesn't have to feel true yet. It only has to be more accurate than the old one. Some people find that, said quietly during the hard part of the evening, it takes up a little of the space that the old rule used to fill.
What would a truer sentence sound like in your own words, one that leaves room for the missing without turning it into proof that you've drifted out of the circle?Talk about this ›
What to let be
Some of the ache can simply sit there #
Not every pang on a festival day needs fixing, explaining or planning around. Some of it can be noticed, felt for a moment, and allowed to sit beside you, the way you might let a quiet friend sit next to you on the sofa.
That isn't giving in to it. It is choosing where your energy goes, and some people say it leaves more room for the small festival they do have: the food, the lights on the next balcony, the people around them here.
Letting the ache sit there for the evening doesn't mean the distance is fine, or that anything is settled. It only means the missing doesn't have to take over the whole of the day.
If it loosened
And if the rule loosened, even a notch #
Imagine, only as a picture, the rule a notch quieter. You still miss them on the day, but the day here counts too. What is the first thing that feels different?
Small things can be enough, such as one lamp lit on the windowsill, a call enjoyed without counting the faces you can't hug, or a dinner with friends here where all of you is in the room. What would your first small thing be?
Nothing here needs to be said to anyone. Whatever comes up is yours, and worth noticing. If you'd like to look at it properly, a chat is one tap away.
Small things to try
Something to try
A few small things people find useful #
- Notice the moment you start comparing, and name it in your head: “that's the two pictures again”
- After the call, put a hand flat on the table and take three slow breaths before picking up the photos
- Pick one small thing from the festival to do right here, just for yourself
- Think of one festival memory that still makes you smile, and let it be enough for now
- Before sleeping, name one warm moment from the day that happened here, not there
Small, private and all optional. Try whichever feels doable this year.
Pick a question
Talk it through #
Tap one. A chat with Dr. Thoughts opens on that question: free, private, no sign-up to start.
- Which festival smell or sound would you bring here, if you could bring only one?
- Who used to make you feel most counted in on festival days?
- What did this festival look like where you actually were?
- On an ordinary day when the rule is loud, what would you still be putting off?
- If it eased a little, what would you notice first?