How Diwali became the best compatibility test for my relationships

Do they light up the day or dim your spark?

Not every Diwali looks the same. I’ve had many versions since childhood. There was a time I was a tiny tubby watching my sisters burst firecrackers, blissfully unaware of their consequences. Later came the years when our extended family gathered at my nani’s house to light a few phuljhadis and tuck into a spread of dal makhani, paneer tikka, and her beloved mini gulab jamuns. Eventually, I graduated to rangoli duty, with my parents cheering on my amateur designs. Every family has its rituals; some evolve, some fade, and some stay stubbornly the same.

So when I grew older and entered the “dating for marriage” phase, celebrating Diwali with someone new felt like getting a glimpse into the future. If we became a family, what would our Diwali look like? What would our celebrations say about us as a couple? It turns out I wasn’t overthinking either. A 2020 study found that holiday rituals help people reflect on who they are as a couple and as a family. “Rituals provide a unique time to review one’s partner and relationship; you get to see a host of behaviours and interactions that might normally be obscured,” the study notes.

And the festive season did in fact reveal, and sometimes confirm, the nature of the men I was dating and which way our relationship could go. Of course, their festive behaviour alone didn’t decide how the relationship progressed—I didn’t break up with anyone just because they vacuumed the joy out of my Diwali. But I found that how someone celebrates a festival reveals more than any compatibility quiz ever could.

Diwali showed me whether my partners were red flags

The one who only celebrated himself

The thing about my dating life was that I used to go for men who were good on paper. There was Arjun*: an ambitious chartered accountant whom I met on a dating app. He was respectful, we shared great chemistry, and we were both fond of chole bhature. We clicked, and I started dating him in 2017, when I was 26.

His parents lived in Punjab, and as his girlfriend, I wanted to spend Diwali with him. I invited him to join my family for dinner. We had both been open about our relationship, our families knew, and I had even met his maasi and cousins in Mumbai. But he didn’t want to come over for Diwali. Instead, he asked me to cut short my family celebration and meet him outside. I didn’t want to leave him alone on Diwali, so I agreed.

We went for a drive, and as we went past people celebrating with their loved ones in the streets and in their windows, I felt an unease in my chest. I wanted to be with my family, but I felt pushed into choosing him instead. I said nothing but in that moment, I knew this wasn’t the kind of Diwali I wanted for myself.

It wasn’t just Diwali. Other special occasions revealed a pattern. My birthday had to be celebrated only with him. On New Year’s, he whisked me away to his family’s party. I remembered how he had refused to be part of mine.

He wanted to meet me or call me at his own convenience, and needed me to be understanding whenever he got upset over minor difficulties. Slowly, it became clear that the relationship revolved around him, his dreams, his moods, his family. Me? I was meant to hover on the sidelines.

The relationship didn’t last beyond one and a half years. A few months later, I walked away, and thankfully, with a much clearer sense of what I wanted from love.

The one who killed Diwali

Vishal*, another great guy on paper—tall, an investment banker, who was into fitness and sports, and, as it turned out, boredom. He had a crush on me in college, but like most college crushes, I only found out about it after he had been safely friendzoned. He seemed fun back then, charming even, but I just didn’t feel the same way about him, and quietly distanced myself.

Years later, when we reconnected, I finally felt the sparks too. He was more confident, more polished, and seemed to have traded in his awkwardness for ambition. We went for dinners, danced, laughed, and then started dating in 2019.

That year, he invited me home for Diwali to meet his family, and I agreed to drop by. After finishing the puja at my house, I got ready in a lotus pink kurta, jhumkis, and straightened my hair. I have a weakness for men in traditional wear, so I was excited to see him dressed up too.

Instead, I walked in to find him on the couch in the oldest yellow T-shirt known to man, a piece of clothing that should have retired when he hit double digits. No flowers, no lights, just two lonely diyas his mom had placed by the door. In his home, Diwali had officially gone to die. When I asked about it, he shrugged. “We don’t care much about Diwali anymore,” he said. “My brother and I stopped celebrating, so my parents also lost interest.”

I, on the other hand, love the festival. Its chaos, the lamps, the clothes, the overenthusiastic greetings. I am the person who wishes everyone Happy Diwali with the energy of Ranveer Singh after a double espresso. Could I really imagine marrying someone who had zero festive spirit?

As the relationship progressed, I realised he didn’t care about much. Not festivals, not date nights, and, increasingly, not me. We would go out, and he would be more invested in the food than the conversation. Most of our meetings would involve us sitting on the couch in front of his TV, with me between him and his mother. He didn’t care that when I left his house, it was pouring outside and I was struggling to find an Uber. Nor did he seem to think we needed to spend more time just the two of us, without his mother. A lot of our dating life is a blur to me, but I remember feeling tired and bored.

We broke up by December that year, just before Christmas and New Year’s, after six months of dating. He had managed to steal my birthday, my Diwali, my Halloween, my weekends, and all my joie de vivre. I refused to lose any more holidays to him and just wanted to feel happy again. I celebrated with my friends instead, and it was the most joy I had felt in months. This relationship had been my shortest ever.

The one who lit up my Diwali and my life

When I met Sumit* in 2023, our first date was electric—a perfect dinner with endless sangrias and so much laughter that we ended up going dancing as well. We then sat in my building compound, talking till sunrise. Four or five months into our relationship, it was time for Diwali.

I already had a Diwali ritual with my best friends where we celebrated together, a day or two before the big one. He had his own tradition too, his best friend’s annual Diwali party. So we did both. One was a loud, glittery rager; the other was all about good food, cocktails, and silly games. It felt like the perfect balance, a sense of us as a team where both our worlds mattered. He even looked heartbreakingly handsome in his dark blue kurta, which matched beautifully with my sage green one-shoulder anarkali.

That sense of partnership and shared values carried into everything and every occasion—weddings, birthdays, New Year’s, anniversaries. We celebrated with love, laughter, and mutual effort. We paid attention to each other’s interests and made space for each other’s lives.

We have been married for a year now, and this was our third Diwali together. This time, he tried his hand at painting a rangoli. He was terrible at it and had to be reassigned to runner duties. But I loved every second of it. I wasn’t the only one lighting up the festival. Someone was right there beside me, helping it shine.

While I didn’t make relationship decisions solely based on how the men celebrated Diwali with me, it certainly revealed the colour of the flags they carried. So pay attention to how your partner shows up amid the sweet chaos of festivals. Do they light up the day or dim your spark?

*Names changed for anonymity