Diwali- the Festival of Lights

I mentioned in a post a while ago that Diwali is the peak of the Indian holiday season. Well in the past few days I have gotten to experience just that- the ultimate fusion of exuberant, nonstop celebrating and regimented religious tradition that is Diwali. If you are familiar with any Hindu holidays, it would most likely be this one, and there is a reason for that. Diwali is basically the best parts of all the holidays I have ever experienced (good food, lots of people, bright decorations, fireworks) rolled into five spectacular days. So while Hindus do celebrate a lot of things, this is the one to remember.

Two of Ben's cousins, himself, and me at a firework stand.

Preparation for Diwali starts pretty far in advance. One thing that it is known for is cleaning, typically done to welcome the gods into your home. Before the celebration begins, everyone buys new clothes as well, to be worn during the Pooja, or worship. This can all be done in the week or so leading up to it. However, unlike in the States, where commercial Christmas more or less begins just after Halloween, the major preparations happen the night before hand. Almost overnight, standard roadside shops transformed into concrete vases, to hold their brightly lit and exuberantly coloured paper lantern bouquets. And joining these everyday shops, you suddenly find rows upon rows of firework stalls. So the real Diwali preparation begins with everyone rushing out to buy their household adornments and what will soon become the most festive displays.

Another aspect of Diwali that starts long before hand are the visits. It is seen as a time to visit family and friends, and in particular to give gifts of sweets. In the course of a day, our house was suddenly being bombarded with treats of all kinds, mostly the traditional Indian kind which are small, dense, and extremely sweet. Not to mention our own endeavor of baking upwards of 25 small cakes to send off to friends of our own. I have a theory that the tradition of dancing is simply to combat the influx of delicious food that accompanies the holiday season.

An example of rangoli, which the teachers at school made.

Diwali celebrates a lot of different things, but it is mainly the celebration of the god Rama returning from his exile. So a lot of the decorations have to do with welcoming. I mentioned the paper lanterns which you can buy in the markets and are traditionally hung and lit up outside your home. There is also the tradition of rangoli, which is a coloured powder used to decorate the threshold of your house. You sprinkle the powder in patterns outside your door, as a very bright reminder that all are welcome. Then there are the diyas, or lanterns, which are placed either on the rangoli or just outside the home. Traditionally they form a line leading up to the house, to guide the gods, but often they are just sprinkled around decoratively.

Ben's grandparents, aunt, uncle, cousins, and Mom

Like I said, one of the larger aspects of Diwali is visiting, which means it is generally spent with your family. So we spent the first couple of days in Ben's grandparent's house in Jalna, along with some of his other relatives. His grandparent's had their house built a little bit outside of the city, so it was a nice calm place to spend our holiday. Family is extremely important in India, much more so than in the United States, where you are mostly concerned with your direct relatives. Here, all of the cousins are really close, and the Jalna house is the perfect place for everyone to come and be together.

The intricate set-up for Laxmi Pooja

The main day that we celebrated was the 26th, which is the day of Laxmi Pooja. Laxmi Pooja is the specific set of prayers that happen during Diwali. The interesting thing about the pooja, and a lot of Hindu traditions in general actually, is that no one quite understands it. It is made up of a lot of very specific actions involving various flowers, fruits, silver coins, spices, etc. and of course a lot of singing. But very few people actually know what the specific aspects of the pooja are for, or what their overall significance is. Nonetheless, I found it extremely interesting, because when set up it creates this beautiful and almost artistic display. And the prayers themselves seem to run on forever in a single breath, endless strands pulled from a collective pool of religious knowledge. The worship finally culminated in a prayer song, in which everyone clapped the rhythm along with the pandit (the man leading the pooja, someone familiar with the prayers).

Ben and I setting off some firecrackers.

When the pooja was over, we started in on the main reason Diwali is so universally loved- the fireworks. I have never actually set off fireworks myself (I probably have the ever safety conscious laws of the United States to thank for that) so personally I was really excited about this. We had bought an entire cardboard box full the night before, and they were just waiting for us to begin the actual celebration. At this point we could already hear innumerable crackers going off throughout the city, as they had been for days, and our's quickly joined the mix. The fireworks ranged from colourful fountains, to spinning sparks, and all the way to the huge bursts in the sky that Americans are of course very familiar with. We also had box after box of sparklers, another Fourth of July favourite, to actually set the fireworks off. By the time we finished our entire box, the noises in the background had only multiplied. Though our celebrating was coming to a close, the joys of Diwali would continue long into the night. After all, it is the Festival of Lights.

Me with some sparklers, or phooljari (flower sticks)

Diwali also celebrates the New Year. The Hindu calendar is lunar, so the months end and begin on different days than our calendar. The day after Laxmi Pooja is considered the actual New Year day, and even more so than the others, this is the real day of visiting. So we headed off to Jalna to wish some friends a happy New Year. On our final stop, as is to be expected, they insisted that we have some of their food. They had made dashmi, which is a sweet flat bread, and probably one of my favourite lunches. Unfortunately, I was recovering from a stomach bug, so I wan't able to eat very much. But one thing that older Indian woman are particularly known for is being very insistent on just how much food you should be eating. And lucky for us this household happened to have three of them. Flitting between kitchen and dining room, each would bombard us in a never ending push of dashmi, chutnies, subji, and of course, desserts. Just when I had successfully communicated to one in Hindi that I was finished, another would sweep up from behind, refreshing the culinary infantry. But eventually the force-feeding did end (begrudgingly) and we made our way home.

That about ended our Diwali celebrations, though the holiday itself is actually five days long. Brian (Ben's brother) and his roommate Michel arrived on the 27th, so things have picked up around here. Of course, we celebrated their arrival with yet more fireworks, because why waste a perfectly good opportunity to blow things up? Besides, what better way for them to arrive than with explosives bright enough to cut through even the deepest jet lag? As for me, now I have the rest of my Diwali holiday from school to enjoy, since they give the kids enough time to travel and visit family. But around here, there will always be plenty to do.