The Festival of Lights

Hello my faithful readers. I have to, once more, apologize for being a delinquent blogger…it’s just so hard to post when I’m out romping through Africa! :) But I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s been an incredibly fun, though hectic past month. A lot has happened and thus I’m going to split my stories into four posts. But don’t worry, these will come in quick succession, you won’t have to wait two weeks between these, I promise.

The first week of November, I celebrated Diwali with my adoptive family here. It was my first ever Diwali celebration. In fact, I’d never even heard about Diwali until a week prior to it occurring. However, it has quickly become one of my new favorite holidays and it’ll soon become clear why.

But first, a little historical didactics. (Sorry, did you really think I’d miss a chance to teach?) Diwali (pronounced “Divali”) is considered one of, if not the most, important festival of the year in Hinduism. The word itself comes from the Sanskrit phrase meaning “row of lamps.” The festival is meant to commemorate a story from ancient Hindu lore in which the people of Ayodhya celebrated the return of their king, Lord Rama and his triumph over the demon-king Ravana by illuminating their kingdom with oil lamps and firecrackers.

Today, Diwali is a family-centered holiday, much like Thanksgiving or Christmas. Families gather in their homes and light candles or the more traditional small clay lamps filled with oil to symbolize the triumph of good over evil. The celebration extends for several days and as such, there were fireworks for three days all over Durban, leading up to Friday the 5^th of November, the main Diwali night. To prepare for this night, families spend the previous evening and the morning of cooking and baking what can only be described as goodie platters piled high with sweets. (That or they buy pre-packaged goodie platters.) Then on the main Diwali night, people dress up in nice punjabis, light their candles and lamps, and circulate through family members,’ neighbors’ and friends’ homes eating and sharing goodie platters.

So what was my Diwali like? Well, Wednesday night was spent in Chatsworth with one of my friends’ families. Chatsworth, a town/community just outside Durban proper, is almost entirely populated by Indian families and as such was a good place to start my Diwali celebration. One of the fireworks stores near my friend’s home was staying open til 10 PM, playing live music and setting off thousands of rands’ worth of fireworks as a kick-off celebration. Large fireworks displays lit the street as kids danced around them. It was fun, though my motherly/doctorly instincts were activated on more than one occasion and I had to keep myself from pulling someone else’s child further away from the fireworks when they got too close for my comfort. (I included the picture so you can hopefully agree with my assessment of the entirely too near proximity of children to sparkling fire.)

Thursday night, I went over to Lee & Kevin’s house and helped them cook up a sweets storm and arrange the platters they were going to hand out the next day. (I should mention that my “help” consisted of tasting all the sweets and approving how delicious they were.) My favorite were definitely the pastries consisting of a Cadbury chocolate embedded in a sugar cookie-like little ball then sprinkled with glitter-like sugar. Tasty AND pretty!

Then Friday after work, I packed a bag with my newly tailored punjabi and matching accessories (hey, just because I’m in Africa doesn’t mean I don’t accessorize and color match my outfits as usual) and headed over to the Sewnarains’ house. There was something about eating delicious biriyani and home-cooked sweets in a house illuminated by candles and filled with laughter that was incredibly heart-warming. Also, any evening that involves dressing up usually makes me happy, but this time, as you can see from the picture below, I got to wear my first bindi! I loved it so much, it actually made me sad to take it off before bed.

The fireworks reminded me of the 4^th of July, which of course filled me with warm memories of this year’s fantastic display I got to view from a rooftop in Washington D.C. My outfit, complete with bindi, ended up being a fantastic substitute for my lack of costume on Halloween this year. And finally, the overwhelming amount of food and sweets I ate in the span of two days reminded me of Thanksgiving. I think that should make it clear why Diwali is now one of my favorite holidays. Although I am still very much a Catholic, I don’t see any reason why I can’t fill my future homes with candles once a year to celebrate the triumph of good over evil. Oh and of course, to eat plenty of sugar cookie-covered Cadbury chocolates.