During the whole month of October we were bombarded with Diwali ads. They were on TV, on billboards, in the stores, everywhere. It’s a big, big holiday here. It’s an Indian Hindu holiday, and for our FHE we had a fellow come and talk about Diwali.
It’s actually a 5 day celebration, but the middle day is the official day of Diwali. To celebrate the holiday people clean and fix up their homes and properties. Our landlord painted our whole house and wanted it done before Diwali, and they almost made it, just the fence wasn’t done. And they get all new clothes. And the bushes were all pruned and the yards spruced up.
Our landlord, Avenish, invited us to celebrate Diwali with his family. Since it was on Sunday they involved us after church. In the day they spent a lot of time setting up luminary type things in their grass and putting Christmas type lights on their house, and getting other lights ready.
In the afternoon they brought us over sweets, which aren’t really all that sweet, but are spicy. Then later they brought us over curry and little pancake type of things, and they kept the spices down for us wimps. Then at dark the fun began. All during October there have been fireworks on sale and as it got closer they began shooting them off.
But on the actual night it was amazing, houses were lit up like we do on Christmas, and there were fireworks going off everywhere and lights on many houses. They also make intricate designs on the concrete with colored rice that are very cool. And the noise kept up until midnight and then quiet reigned once again. But the next night and for the next few nights they kept up and finally that tapered off. It was a fun holiday.
We took some pictures, but our camera doesn’t like night much so they weren’t the best. Sister Whitehead got some good shots with her fancy camera and we pinched a few from her. Fun holiday, but it did seem strange that they didn’t turn their lights on until the night of and not the next night – not like the month long marathon we do for Christmas at home.
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