Diyas lit. Rangoli chalked in. The earth cooling after a long hot day.
The aangan is the part of the house that breathes. It's open to the sky, which means it changes with the time of day — sharp and hot in the afternoon, quiet and different at dusk when the light goes orange and someone has started lighting the diyas.
The earth in an aangan has a smell that's distinct from garden soil. It's drier, warmer, older — the smell of a surface that has seen a thousand mornings and a thousand evenings and absorbed something of each of them. There's dry wood somewhere in it. Old incense that's burned itself out but hasn't left yet. Evening air with nothing particular in it, which is its own kind of smell.
Aangan doesn't rush. It settles into a room slowly and stays.
