Diwali

Diwali means festival of lights. This is one of the main festival celebrated in our country as per Hindu mythology. Usually, this festival is celebrated with great pomp in North India.

The story behind this festival as per Hindu mythology is to celebrate the victorious return of Lord Rama with his wife Sita, along with his brother Lord Laxmana to the Kingdom of Ayodhya after 14 years of exile. His return to the kingdom is after defeating the demon Ravana in Lanka.

In particular, I just know this one story but there are other stories also behind this celebrations. A national holiday is being observed in schools, colleges and other educational and government institutions on this particular day. But in north, ten days holidays were already declared.

In the evening almost all the houses are lit with a number of Diyas at the inside and outside of their home. Diya meaning a small open pot made of mud clay where some oil and a cloth is placed. It is lit in the evening.

It is a day where variety of colourful sweets named laddoo, jelabi, Burfi and other varieties of milk sweets and snacks are sold and they are being given to families, friends and relatives.

The main highlight of thid function are crackers. Fire works and cracker bursting were continuing for the last three days. But today it was a bit heavy.

As the past two years were dark years of covid there were no celebrations of any festivals globally. But this time the public has utilized the opportunities for celebration at its maximum.

To my surprise we too enjoyed the celebration at the most. Because righr nearby our place is a small pond and every year (except for the last two years) three elephants are decorated and brought there with grand escorts on both sides. After giving it a good bath it is being taken back to the temple.

It is a belief by the people that on this particular day, God takes the form of elephant. A great feast is arranged for the elephant and public before ita heavenly bath.

The streets were crowded with lot of peoples, colourful balloons, too many ice cream vans and above all a police vehicle to control the public.

We had a great time watching this celebration.