Day 6: Diwali

Last night marked the first day of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. The five-day celebration symbolizes the victory of good over evil and knowledge over ignorance. It also celebrates the return of the Hindu Lord Rama after his defeat of the demon-king Ravana.

The name Diwali, also spelled Deepavali or Deepaawali, means “array of lamps.” It refers to the rows of lighted clay lamps that people use to decorate for the holiday.

As the most important and popular Hindu festival, Diwali is a time for fun and traditional activities with family and friends. People decorate their homes, share sweets and snacks, and, of course, light lots of lamps and candles to remind everyone of the inner light that exists within us all.

Since this was my first time celebrating Diwali, I didn’t have any clay oil lamps, but I still managed to do a pretty good job decorating. Okay, so maybe my efforts weren’t very professional. I didn’t have flowers or fancy paper, so I made chains out of construction paper to make my shrine look a little more festive than usual (see picture below). And no, before you bother asking, my 3-year-old niece did NOT make the decorations for me. She would have done a better job.

All right, I know. It’s lame. But I’m pretty proud of my attempt at creating my own “array of lamps.” I used tea lights to make an “Om” symbol, which looked really nice in the dark. Unfortunately, my camera wouldn’t let me turn off the flash, so the picture doesn’t really do my little set-up justice. Trust me—it looked pretty cool (see picture below).

I made some excellent deep-fried snacks, and we also had plenty of sweets (they were left over from Halloween last week, but hey, a sweet is a sweet, and I have to get rid of all those Skittles somehow).

Maybe my Diwali festival was a tad on the makeshift side, but I’m really just a makeshift Hindu, so it seemed appropriate. Besides, the message is still the same: Good triumphs over evil, and light triumphs over darkness. And that, I can celebrate. Shubh Diwali!