The Diwali Festival

We are in NZ so we cannot celebrate Diwali to the max. But this year we will still put up Diwali decorations and invite guests. We will also give gifts to friends and relatives, but it will mainly be sweets.

For me the highlights of Diwali are sweets and fireworks. Too bad we can’t do any fireworks in NZ because they are banned.

In Diwali our family we gather before the Goddess Lakshmi inside our house and do a pooja (prayer). In the prayer we sing praises to Goddess Lakshmi. We put a chandi ki thali in front of Goddess Lakhsmi

We also have a diva(candle) in every corner of the house , inside and out. outside our house. On Diwali we pray that we will get a good amount of money for the coming year. This is because for Hindus our New Year is on 29th October.

For food we make sweets and nice food. All the sweets are different shapes. They range from circles to diamonds to squares. Most of the sweets are not wrapped and you can get them loose at any Indian sweet shop. If you want sweets in boxes then you can also find those at any Indian shop.

Personally I like home-made sweets which my mum makes for us. It might take a long time but at the end it is worth it. Even the colours of the sweets are all different. Some are white, some are orange, red and lots more. There are quite a few sweets with the same names but different flavour and colours.

We also make Rangoli designs just outside our house. To make them you can get special colours in any Indian shop and with that will come a booklet of designs that you can make.

In NZ we go to at least one celebration every year at Viaduct Harbour. This year we went on 19 October. Although it is 9 days before Diwali we had lots of fun and lots of food. So why don’t you go and celebrate Diwali with us. HAPPY DIWALI!!!

by Harsh Shah