This juxtaposition is the essence of the Indian household. The same living room that houses a flat-screen television will have a puja (prayer) corner with a brass lamp lit at dawn. Festivals like Diwali (the festival of lights) are celebrated with equal fervor using earthen clay lamps and high-tech LED lights. Indians do not modernize by erasing tradition; they upgrade it, wrapping fiber-optic cables around ancient banyan trees.