Diwali

My mother's Diwali spread

This past weekend was Diwali, the biggest festival of the year in India. I grew up celebrating our own American version of Diwali. We would have a small family puja, or prayer, eat a good dinner and have elaborate sweets that my mother spent the entire preceding week making. Several weekends around Diwali would be full of parties we would have to attend, which usually meant seeing the same people in different locations. One of these parties would be at our house, with one hundred people coming through our door during a two-hour window, filling the house with laughter, chatter and children’s pattering feet. At some parties there would even be fireworks that we would let off in the driveway. Having nothing to compare it to, this was my Diwali. This was how I defined it and what I loved about it.

Our house full of guests. This is a small crowd compared to some years!

A sweet shop in India, extended to accommodate extra sweets

I then went to India and saw how we had adapted the typical Indian festivities for our humble town in Illinois. True, our fireworks were more modest and there were no sweet shops spilling onto the street with their wares but many of the sweets my mother makes every year for Diwali are the ones available in these stores. We didn’t have extended family around so instead we spent Diwali with our

extended-extended family, or our friends in the Indian community. Our puja was done with the close family we did have around.

This year being in Finland, I was afraid of Diwali falling off the wayside. These fears, it turns out, were unfounded because I learned,there is a robust Indian community here as well and they wanted to celebrate Diwali as close to how they did back home as they could.

My friend and I ready for festivities to start.

And so on Diwali, I set out wearing a new salwar kameez, with a pot full of daal chawal that I had made. With a few friends, we went to celebrate Diwali by having a puja, listening to children’s pattering feet and eating an elaborate array of food that included samosas, puris, rasmalai and gulabjamun. Just as my parents had adapted their Diwali celebrations to their new environment, I and all of the other Indians there were adapting our Diwali to our new residence.

In my classes we’ve been having many discussions about diversity and how important it is to celebrate diversity. It is true that there were a few non-Indians at this Diwali party but sharing our culture was only a part of the equation. The main purpose was to bring a part of our home with us even while we were bundled up in heavy winter jackets and trying to speak Finnish. I am in a new country and want to have new experiences but there is a certain comfort in the familiar. I think it is ok to revert back to what is easy once a year. And then I can rejoin the beautiful kaleidoscope outside of our Indian bubble.

The set up for the puja in Finland

 As a side note: Winter is officially here! We had our first snow though it has already melted.