(Top) Vedika Bhaia lights Diwali lamps with her mother and aunt at home on Thursday, 14 years after Metro had featured her watching them light the lamps at the same spot (below)

Diwali 2000: All of two years old, she sits pretty on her mother’s lap with her aunt by her side, watching them light the Diwali diyas on the verandah of their Lord Sinha Road house.

Diwali 2014: Now 16, she sits pretty and tall between her mother and her aunt, helping them light the diyas on the verandah of their Lord Sinha Road house.

A lot has changed for Vedika Bhaia and her world in these 14 years.

She, of course, does not remember Diwali 2000, when she made it to the Metro pages as a toddler. But for mother Pinki and aunt Kiran it is a precious moment in the family scrapbook of time. “Just after that photograph was clicked, Vedika took the stage for the very first time as part of a Diwali Bollywood dance night organised in our building. It was a special day and I still remember it with fondness,” smiles the proud mother.

Back then, little Vedika was the youngest member of the Bhaia family in Ankur building and just a curious onlooker in the festival of lights.

Now a Class X student of Modern High School for Girls, Vedika is a responsible elder sister to twin siblings Yuvraj and Yashvi, students of Class VI, and she has graduated from watching diyas being lit to lighting diyas, anars and charkhis herself.

“I am not a cracker kind of person and rockets are good to see in the sky but not to burst,” smiles Vedika, who is happy that Diwali has quietened down over the years.

“People have become more conscious of the decibel level and the police are also more alert. I remember when I was younger, people would burst anything and everything but now things are much safer and more organised,” she says.

In a world of change — when Vedika first made it to Metro, no shopping mall or multiplex that she now frequents had opened in town, no T20 match that she watches at Eden or on TV had been played, there was no Facebook or WhatsApp for her to connect with friends, cell phones were all dumb, the list goes on... — some things have remained the same.

Like Diwali in the Bhaia household, where the shopping “for new ethnic clothes” still starts two weeks in advance, where Vedika still helps her mother and aunt light up the diyas, where the family gets together for the evening puja at home, where Vedika and her siblings and cousins go down “sharp at eight” to burst crackers with other friends from the building.

The festive mood sets in with the family lighting 11 diyas on Dhanteras, 21 diyas on Chhoti Diwali and 51 diyas on Diwali night. But the run-up to Diwali does not only mean new clothes and silver coins. Cleaning the house is a tradition that has passed on from generation to generation. “All of us cousins launch a clean-up drive before Diwali,” says Vedika.

The family has a special Marwari menu for a traditional lunch on Diwali in special silver utensils. Moong chawal lapsi is a must.

“We have food together, fun together and our uncle (the seniormost member of the family now) gives cash to all of us after the evening puja,” says Vedika. “This is a gentle reminder to me to perform my Diwali duty!” laughs the head of the family, Satish Bhaia.

What does mom Pinki make of Diwali being that one day when her teenaged daughter chooses family over friends? “Over the years Vedika has become very mature and I am proud of how she likes to spend Diwali with the family. Never has she told me that she wants to go out with friends on this day.”

Vedika tells us just why: “Friends are for other days, but Diwali has to be with family.”