Last year, our writer Sheela Lal shared her experience in India during Diwali, the festival of lights:
“My senses are on edge. I run to avoid the sparks from the lit gunpowder hitting my skin. Flashing lights pop out against the deep black sky, which makes venturing outside a detriment to my eyesight. There are rumblings similar to thunder, and louder roars that follow, creating a calming sensation. Then there are sudden crashes that cause me to jump out of bed, and create momentary deafness.
I’m not in a war zone. Just in a densely populated area of Hyderabad, India celebrating Diwali.
This is the festival of lights; lighting diyas and setting off firecrackers are the norm. When I was younger, my family would go to larger community events and partake in fireworks, but now, instead we keep it a small family affair. We light tea candles and line our deck and driveway with them; we decorate the porch with untimely Christmas lights. Fireworks don’t make an appearance.
Nighttime is when Diwali celebrations truly begin. People flooded the streets. Lights decorated buildings, and momentarily I thought I was in an American metropolis, rather than the suburbs of a sprawling Indian city. Firecrackers upgraded from sparklers to bombs and explosions of multicolored lights sprinkled around.”
For many Brown Girls, Diwali has a very special meaning and conjures up stories with family, friends, lots of food, and of course lights!
What was your favorite Diwali memory?
To encourage you to share your story, American Express is giving away FIVE $50 dollar American Express Diwali Gift Cards! Just post your story below! Don’t forget to include your email address so that we can contact you if we choose your story (your email addy won’t show up to the public).
don’t worry, your story doesn’t have to be as long as Sheela’s! Anything will do, funny, memorable, etc!
Good luck!
My favorite thing to do during Diwali was burst fireworks. My grandfather bought the fireworks in bulk, with the condition that my younger brother and I share them. Once we were given our portions, we packed them up in our respective boxes, to be used for the entire Diwali season spanning a good two weeks. Even when I was younger, I liked to plan things out, especially fireworks so that I would have something to enjoy everyday for 2 weeks. My 4 year old brother, however was the complete opposite. After dinner, the entire family would gather in the front garden, and my bother and I would burst our fireworks. My brother used up his entire allotment, enough for two weeks, on the first day itself, after being warned several times that he was not going to get any new ones! He enjoyed every minute of the lights and the explosive sounds.
So the next day, after dinner, I pulled out my box, took out the fireworks that I had planned to use on day 2, and went outside to burst them. That day, my younger brother realized that he didn’t have any more fireworks, so he patiently watched for most of the time, and towards the end, I gave him one of mine so that he didn’t look so miserable. The third day, came, and he wanted more fireworks. I quickly realized that he was going to do this everyday, and that I would have to share my set of fireworks with him. I refused to give him any fireworks, so naturally he went to get reinforcement. My mom came, and heard both sides of the story, and she looked at me and said, “He is your younger brother, you have to share with him.” I plead, and told her that he had already used up his share, and that it was unfair that he get mine too, but she didn’t have any of it. I thought that was the most unfair thing that could’ve ever happened to me! Here I was, left with 1/4th of the fireworks that that originally come into the house instead of the 1/2 that I had planned for.
My brother continued to do that every year. And every year, he would get away with it “Because he is younger, he doesn’t know better.” Even having those squabbles, we enjoyed Diwali thoroughly. Bursting fireworks is what we did together every year. We grew up, went our separate ways to pursue our dreams, and now he is half way around the world. As unfair as it seemed back then, I would do anything to celebrate another Diwali with him, even if it meant that I give up all my fireworks.
My favorite memory of Diwali was seeing the joy in my younger brother’s eyes as he burst his fireworks.
As a child, my favorite aspect of Diwali was receiving gifts (just like any other child) and running around with sparklers. I looked forward to Diwali each year mainly because I knew it was one more holiday where I could receive a gift of choice (my most memorable was a batch of beanie babies that completed some sort of collection that I don’t even remember now). However, I now realize that Diwali has a completely different meaning. Since I no longer live with my family, I’m not able to spend every Diwali with them. I’ve realized that the occasion is more than just getting gifts, but more about spending time with family and friends. When I lived at home, I took advantage of the fact that every year, I was blessed to be in the presence of those I love most, while eating an abundance of yummy home-cooked food and sweets. Being so far away makes me miss them even more and I wish I could spend every Diwali with them!
Much like everyone else… I look forward to all my family getting together and all the unhealthy, fried food that my mom and all my aunts make! My favorite memory and tradition is getting to play carrom board with the whole family! Even though I’ve come to terms with sucking at the game – still something I look forward to every year
Happy Diwali BG!
My favorite memory of Diwali was when I was in high school. My dad was working away from home since middle school. My sister went away to college in Illinois my freshman year of high school. So it was just my mom and me at home. We stopped eating at the table and didn’t eat the full course indian dinner. But then my freshman year the whole family was at home and my mom went crazy making every yummy thing there was! It felt so nice to sit together at the table for dinner! we ended up talking and eating for 2 hours!
Now I live miles from home and get very home sick during this time of year.
My favorite thing and memory about Diwali is the amount of time I would get to spend with the family. I loved decorating the house with so many lights, and creating these large rangooli designs outside of the house. After eating endless amounts of snacks and sweets we would just sit and talk for hours. What I love most is that even though we don’t live in the same city as our parents, we still continue celebrating Diwali in the same way each year.
Ever since I remember those Diwali days, my heart swells up with infinite joy…first of all those vacation days just filled with pure undisciplined life, no school, no homework, no stern glances from sisters-nuns (I studied in convent school) Those days my house would fill up with lots of cousins, friends and relatives. There would be great hustle and bustle in the kitchen, with my mother, grandmother, aunts and couple of “help” ladies all talking about the dishes in progress, offering advise after tasting, great aroma would fill up the whole house! I remember variety of snacks being filled in huge containers to be used in coming days, sweets and desserts. No one stopped me from eating those Mathias and Chorafali in insane quantity. Doing Rangoli was my favorite activity and I would spend many hours each of those festival days by making new designs with amazing colors. I love the feeling of celebration around this time of the year!
I have to admit, when I woke up this morning, my personal experience with Diwali was rather limited, that is to say it was non-existent. In fact, when my friend Amrita asked me about my own Diwali story, I thought she said “da valley,” which made me wonder if she had joined a latino street gang.
After a brief conversation regarding pronunciation and the lunar calendar, it became clear that she hadn’t joined a street gang, and that I didn’t have a Diwali story. So, with her encouragement, I decided that on October 27, 2011, I would find my own Diwali story, I just had no idea what it was going to entail.
Other than the initial information I’d received from Amrita, I didn’t know where to start, so I decided to do some research. It didn’t take long before I learned that two things were of utmost importance: fireworks and sweets.
“Awesome,” I thought to myself, “This will be easy. I love both of those things.”
So I sat down to write, with the page blank and my fingers anxious. But the words didn’t come. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
I was confused. I loved fireworks and I loved sweets, but I didn’t know how I could turn this into my own Diwali story.
Though somewhat discouraged, I decided to keep researching.
Over the next few hours I poured over anything I could find on the subject, and by late afternoon I found myself able to explain with particular detail the subtle nuances of a tradition I knew nothing about only 24 hours earlier. I’d expanded my vocabulary to include new words, like “Dhanteras” and “Diyas.” I was learning to differentiate between the customs of Diwali as they pertained both religion and geography. Jainism or Sikhism. Gujarat, Maharashtra, or Andrha Pradesh. I’d learned of vanquished demons. I’d learned of freed political prisoners.
The pieces were falling into place. It was more than just fireworks and sweets.
But I still didn’t have my Diwali story.
The disappointment began to sink in, and the reality of my situation was coming into focus. I knew nothing about Diwali when I started, yet here I was hours later, with more than enough knowledge about the particulars of a tradition, but nothing to show for it. The writing was on the wall: I simply had no personal connection to the celebration. I had the facts but not the faith.
But then a light came on. Or maybe a thousand lights. Or maybe a thousand diyas, because at that moment I realized that my Diwali story wasn’t out there waiting to be found, rather, my Diwali story was already found by simply learning about the celebration itself. I found my Diwali story wrapped up in the essence of the event itself. Diwali is after all, a celebration of good over evil, of lightness over darkness, and perhaps most importantly, of knowledge over ignorance. From darkness to light, I’d found my Diwali story.
While I still don’t have those personal connections that only come through decades of tradition and culture, and while I may never be able to appreciate it to the depth and understanding of most of the other posters on this blog, I still have my story.
And tonight…I’ll leave a light on.
Diwali has always been one of my favorite Indian holidays. Taking place in Oct. or Nov. depending on the Indian calendar, the weather is just turning cool, and the holiday feel is already creeping up on everyone when “the Festival of Lights” rolls around. To prepare for Diwali, we would clean our entire house so that it shined. For that week, we would start off each day by washing our doorstep and using Kanku (a red powder used in many religious ceremonies) to draw three Swastikas. Along with having a religious significance, the Swastikas are thought to be auspicious, and are drawn on the doorstep to bring luck and prosperity to your home. I remember my mom making a tray of my favorite Ladoos ( Indian sweets), that would last us the entire month. We would light up the house with candles, and we would also line the candles up outside on our porch. My dad, being a great artist, used to pull out pictures of his amazing rangoli designs from his young days in India. Rangoli is a tradition in which colored powders and rice are used to make different designs on the ground. When we were little, my sister and I would want to try our hand at it too, but not having colored powders, we would resort to chalk drawings on our driveway instead. My dad was raised in Gujurat, where people go crazy over doing fireworks. In a continuation of the fireworks tradition, my dad would bring out a large bag of fireworks that he would have saved from the 4th of July celebrations, and me and my sister would spend hours setting them off with him. Over the weekend we would dress up in Indian clothes and gather with all of our family friends to pray, celebrate the Indian New Year, and eat good food. We would spend the week making and receiving calls from extended family and friends spread out across the world, some of whom we hadn’t spoken to all year, catching up and wishing them a happy new year. Nowadays, with me and my sister in different parts of the world from our parents, we unfortunately can’t celebrate Diwali with the same vivacity that we used to, but every year I get nostalgic for our childhood Diwali celebrations.
Diwali is definitely one of my favorite times of the year for a number of reasons, the weather, the festivities, the amazing food, the beautiful display of lights, but mostly the time we can cherish with our families and friends. My most memorable Diwali’s were celebrated at my parent’s house while my grandparents (nani & nana) were staying with us. Having them there was so much fun because there were so many traditions that both my brother and I were not used to and of course they brought all those traditions to the US with them. Not only did we display thousands and thousands of diya’s around our house, we would light firecrackers (despite our neighborhood regulations, oops!) and all make food together. My most favorite memory came from when I was a lot younger. During the Diwali puja, my mom would give us a spoon of chirnabrath (sweet milk) as part of the puja. This was my favorite part and my whole family knew this so at my Wedding, my parents actually made me an entire bowl of it and I got to drink it during the Ganesh puja. I was definitely made fun of since you are typically only supposed to have a spoon’s worth!
Now, both my husband and I are trying to keep these traditions alive by learning the meanings and history behind Diwali. We hope in the future to be able to celebrate and share Diwali with our families the way my grandparents shared it with us.
I remember celebrating Diwali when I was growing up in New Jersey. The lights and food are what I remember most.
Thank you so much for participating in our contest! After quite some consideration, here are the winners in no particular order:
Ami
Jonathan
Charvi
Tasha
Nupur
Congrats guys!
Thanks!
I think Amrita’s story was very touching! And although Jonathan’s journey of self-discovery of the meaning of Diwali was very humorous, it resonated with the fact that he took time to understand a different culture, spend hours researching on it, and clearly hit the original meaning of Diwali “from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge!” that light can be left on in everyday life!
Ami