Hin­dus all over the world will cel­e­brate Di­vali or Deep­avali: it means a “row of lights called deeyas.” The Hin­du Fes­ti­val of Lights will be cel­e­brat­ed on the evening of No­vem­ber 4.

The pret­ti­est of all In­di­an Fes­ti­vals, the Fes­ti­val of Lights is cel­e­brat­ed on the 15th day of the black fort­night, in the Hin­du month of Kar­tik. It is the day be­fore the Hin­du New Year. The Fes­ti­val marks the dark­est night of the year, when de­vo­tion­al prayers and cer­e­monies are of­fered to the God­dess Lak­sh­mi, a giv­er of hap­pi­ness, health, wealth and pros­per­i­ty.

This fes­ti­val close­ly re­sem­bles Christ­mas. There are a lot of prepa­ra­tions, new clothes are bought, old debts are set­tled, an­gry quar­rels are healed and every­one wish­es every­one else good for­tune for the New Year.

Homes are re­paint­ed, fresh cur­tains are put up, cush­ions and up­hol­stery are changed. Coloured lights are hung at the front door and around the house. Rice/flour floor de­sign pat­terns known as ran­goli, or flower petals, are placed at the en­trance of the front doorsteps, to wel­come the God­dess Lak­sh­mi. One myth says that she comes down to earth on that evening to vis­it homes and show­er bless­ings for the New Year.

The mean­ing of this fes­ti­val is: “We should not on­ly re­move the dark­ness from our homes, but we should al­so re­move the dark­ness from our hearts and minds such as ha­tred, jeal­ousy, ego­tism, en­mi­ty. We should light the lamps of uni­ver­sal love, uni­ty and broth­er­hood. We should strive to make the world hap­py, healthy and pros­per­ous.”

Do­na­tions are giv­en to char­i­ty and food banks; we should not on­ly en­joy the de­li­cious veg­e­tar­i­an feast of favourite foods and desserts our­selves, but share it with oth­ers. Around 5 pm that evening an al­tar is set up and af­ter a spe­cial fam­i­ly prayer (pu­ja) cer­e­mo­ny, the deeyas are lit and dec­o­rat­ed in every room in the house. Small gifts of sweets (methai), can­dles, in­cense and flow­ers are ex­changed.

Fam­i­ly and friends vis­it dur­ing an Open House, where ta­bles of ap­pe­tis­ers and desserts are served. Di­vali cards and ecards are sent to fam­i­ly, friends and busi­ness as­so­ciates wish­ing them a Hap­py Di­vali and a Hap­py New Year. Games are played un­til ear­ly the next morn­ing. No one goes to bed un­til the deeyas have gone out; it is for­bid­den to put them out.

An es­sen­tial part of this gen­er­al benev­o­lence is send­ing small box­es of beau­ti­ful­ly dec­o­rat­ed “mithai” (desserts) to neigh­bours, friends, rel­a­tives and busi­ness as­so­ciates. Ab­solute­ly no one goes with­out “mithai” on Di­vali night. It does not mat­ter how rich or poor you are—every­one joins in to ex­pe­ri­ence the true spir­it of love, uni­ty and broth­er­hood by the shar­ing of “mithai”.

There are a lot of com­pe­ti­tions held the weeks be­fore Di­vali: the best Di­vali greet­ing card de­sign and mes­sage con­test, Ran­goli de­sign con­test, Deeya paint­ing con­test, ta­ble arrange­ment and flo­ral arrange­ment con­test; the best Di­vali song and Mu­sic Con­test. The best Di­vali dhal, rice, veg­etable, bread, yo­ghurt, chut­ney, bev­er­age and dessert recipe con­test; Di­vali pho­tog­ra­phy con­test. These are spon­sored by lo­cal busi­ness­es to en­cour­age every­one to par­tic­i­pate.

The judg­ing be­comes tougher each year. A com­plete Hin­du veg­e­tar­i­an meal con­sists of six ba­sic items: Split lentil soup (dhal), rice, veg­etable (sub­ji), bread (roti), yo­ghurt (rai­ta) and chut­ney. No al­co­hol is served on Di­vali; lemon juice (nim­bu pani) or milk is served with food. A fresh­ly brewed cup of In­di­an milk tea (chai) al­ways fol­lows with “mithai.” Meals are served in in­di­vid­ual, large high-lipped brass or stain­less steel serv­ing dish­es known as a thali. The dhal, veg­etable and yo­ghurt are served in small sep­a­rate bowls. All the food is mixed and eat­en in the thali, which is a com­bi­na­tion plate and bowl with a spoon.

My fond­est mem­o­ry of Di­vali was grow­ing up in an ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly with my grand­par­ents, aunts, un­cles and cousins. I was the first grand­child, there­fore I got a lot of at­ten­tion. My grand­par­ents had cows and would make an al­tar for them and light deeyas around them.

They said that they were al­so a part of our fam­i­ly and must join in the cel­e­bra­tion just like us. It was a joy to watch their de­vo­tion to them be­cause they pro­duced fresh milk for us to drink. The deeyas flick­er­ing in the dark Di­vali night strength­ens our de­ter­mi­na­tion to re­spect knowl­edge, fam­i­ly to­geth­er­ness and a search for a ra­di­ant life. Hin­du de­vo­tion­al songs known as bha­jans are played and sung in Hin­du homes through­out the day of Di­wali, the most pop­u­lar bha­jan is Jai Lak­sh­mi Ma­ta.

“O God­dess of Light, the dis­peller of dark­ness, sick­ness and mis­ery, O Moth­er Lak­sh­mi, the giv­er of hap­pi­ness, health, wealth and pros­per­i­ty,

I bow to thee, please de­stroy all my in­ter­nal en­e­mies: pas­sion, anger, greed and ac­cept my salu­ta­tions.”

A ran­goli sym­bol­is­es beau­ty, hope, and tra­di­tion. It de­rives from the San­skrit word Ran­gaval­li: “Rang” “Aval­li” which means row of colours. The rit­u­al of draw­ing ran­goli pat­terns is a skill, hand­ed down from grand­moth­er to moth­er to daugh­ter and is con­sid­ered an aus­pi­cious wel­come sign, that wards off neg­a­tive en­er­gy and vi­bra­tion be­fore en­ter­ing a home. Women start their dai­ly chores by clean­ing and wash­ing the al­lo­cat­ed area be­fore draw­ing the ran­goli de­sign out­side the thresh­old of the main en­trance, prayer area, court­yard, walls and in front of their sa­cred Tul­si plant.

It is drawn metic­u­lous­ly with bare fin­gers and is revered as a di­vine art, it is cus­tom­ary to chant sa­cred bha­jans, they hope this dai­ly rit­u­al will bring peace and good luck.

Elab­o­rate de­signs are done for spe­cial oc­ca­sions such as Di­vali, the Hin­du Fes­ti­val of Lights, in­clud­ing foot­step de­signs fac­ing to­wards the home. It rep­re­sents the hap­pi­ness, pos­i­tiv­i­ty and live­li­ness in a house­hold in­tend­ed to wel­come Lak­sh­mi, the God­dess of health, wealth and pros­per­i­ty.

The pur­pose of ran­goli is be­yond dec­o­ra­tion, de­sign de­pic­tions may vary as they re­flect tra­di­tions for wed­dings, tem­ple cer­e­monies and Hin­du fes­ti­vals. Large sums of mon­ey are spent by cor­po­ra­tions as a “com­mer­cial wel­come” in five-star ho­tels for for­eign tours and con­fer­ences de­signed by nu­mer­ous peo­ple.

A ran­goli pat­tern is a floor de­sign usu­al­ly drawn us­ing coloured rice, chalk, flower petals, sand and rocks.

Draw­ing and con­nect­ing sim­ple dots or lines is what usu­al­ly cre­ates the ex­quis­ite floor de­sign. Most of the mo­tifs are ei­ther geo­met­ric shapes, de­pic­tions of deities or they im­i­tate flo­ra.

Ran­goli has var­i­ous names through­out In­dia: Ko­lam, Al­pana and Ran­gaval­li. Ran­goli is meant for the mo­ment or the oc­ca­sion. Like a flower, its fresh­ness is short-lived, the im­per­ma­nence of the Ran­goli art can be like a can­dle in the wind. Once its pur­pose is served, it is erased and the rit­u­al is re­peat­ed with the same in­ten­tion and zeal. Lopa­mu­dra was a woman philoso­pher, po­et and en­light­ened be­ing who lived dur­ing the Rig Ve­da pe­ri­od (1950BC-1100 BC).

She want­ed to help her hus­band in wor­ship­ping the gods so she start­ed to make ran­goli, a dec­o­ra­tion for the Yagyakun­da (a place of wor­ship). Lopa­mu­dra asked the Pan­chatat­va (the five el­e­ments-sky, wind, wa­ter, earth and fire) to give her colours to please her hus­band.