2022
Dear All,
The most celebrated festival of India depicting lights as the embodiment of positivity and optimism falls on October this year. It is speculated among priests and astrologers that the ideal dates for Diwali would be October 18 and 19, 2017 for south and north India respectively.
Prior to Diwali night, people clean, decorate or renovate their houses or workplaces. During the main festival people light up their homes with lamps and candles. After that goddess Laxmi is worshiped, as the devotees offer prayers to the goddess of wealth for materialistic abundance and prosperity. Then, fireworks are performed followed by offering sweets and exchange of gifts among families, friends and relatives.
The festivities start with Dhanteras, followed by ‘Narak Chaturdasi’ on second day, Deepawali on third day, ‘Diwali Padwa’ dedicated to matrimony on fourth day and ends with ‘Bhai Dooj’ dedicated to sister-brother bond on the fifth day. On Diwali night, ‘Jains’ celebrate the attainment of salvation by ‘Lord Mahavira’, while ‘Bandi Chhor Diwas’ is celebrated among ‘Sikhs’ to mark the release of ‘Guru Hargobind Singh’ from a Mughal emperor. A majority of Buddhists celebrate Diwali by worshiping Laxmi.
Diwali is a festival which is considered synonymous with sweets and trust me with a lot of sweets. It is mithai which truly captures the essence of the Indian mindset. And you will find every Indian nibbling small morsels of sweets either with a cup of strongly flavoured adrak chai or as a part of the meal. While quite commonly one would find laddoos, barfis, rasgullas and gulab jamuns as the traditional diwali sweets but besides these depending on the regional specialties one could also have Mawa kachori and Moti pak.
Rangoli is a very popular folk art that has several religious connotations across the expanse of India. Known as Kolam in the south to Alpona in West Bengal, these are geometric patterns made in homes as an auspicious symbol, as well as a celebratory one. Diwali is one such occasion when families across the country deck up their homes with various rangoli designs — some colourful some in monochrome, some complicated and some basic. Made with varied materials — from special rangoli powder to ground rice powder to flowers and diyas, here are few designs to inspire you for this year.
The belief of Our Forefathers was that bursting crackers on Diwali will eliminate the evil spirit and simultaneously they lighted up the Diyas to welcome the goodness into their home. Getting the right type of crackers is also important for having a safe and healthy Diwali.
Enjoy a lot with your family and stay away from harmful crackers.
Share your moments in this thread before and after celebrations of this holy festival.
Thank You....
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