Halloween in India?

My dear friend Ritesh and his family (Sandhiya and Daksh) are on a plane to India as I write this.

Ritesh and Daksh

I've been trying to get Ritesh hired on at my company since about a month or two after I met him. He's such a talented developer. He also became one of my very closest friends.

Of course Ritesh is a fellow biker, so we seem to have the same attitude/soul/belief/forgiveness... whatever you want to call it. I sure do think the world of him.

So - I KNOW Ritesh loves halloween. A few of us were outside (smoking) and teasing Ritesh a bit about Halloween in India. One of his friends (Manish) said that he would be stoned in the street if he went trick or treating there (this is some kind of native saying ok?). I said maybe the people would be very confused about a beggar man dressed in weird clothes going from house to house asking for candy. Ritesh laughed.

It's really been a hard road for me since I found out that my company wouldn't be keeping Ritesh on. He is really awesome and we need more people like him. The economy, the times - it all sucks and we are all happy to just have jobs at the moment, right?

I will miss Ritesh, his beautiful wife and his son. They are such good friends. I hope to go visit India, and I know we will at least keep in touch.