Today is the Hindu celebration of Diwali 1 or “the festival of lights.” My partner is hindu so I have been celebrating since I moved to Australia three years ago.
In preparation for the holiday, everyone cleans their houses, trims their gardens and makes enough sweets to kill an army of diabetics. On the day everyone dresses in new brightly colored clothes and visits all their friends and family to share the afore mentioned sweets with one another. At night lots (and I mean lots) of candles are lit all around the yard and sparklers are waved. It is the festival of lights, after all.
At some point there is a service to worship Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity. It is said the reason everyone is so keen on cleaning their house and buying new clothes is that however you are on Diwali, you will spend the rest of the year. In other words, filthy house today, filthy house for the next 365. Be prosperous now, be prosperous later.
This is the big holiday for the Hindu faith. The Indian Christmas, if you will. It’s so important that it is a national holiday in India, and everyone spends the night having fun and setting off firecrackers. 2
There is something about this celebration that really appeals to me. Not only is it aesthetically appealing and we get an excuse to eat all day, but we get to spend it among some of those we love the most. I also really like the idea that we get a blank slate every year. If you have a rough year, you get to put it behind you and start anew. We could all use that sometimes.
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I’m becoming less convinced by the day that you actually know what a pun is.
Happy Diwali! If it can make your house clean it truly is a magical day.
CRACKdown on fireCRACKERS
but I suppose it’s more of a run-of-the-mill play on words