Celebration

Hello friends, today I am going to tell you about celebrations. When I am talking about celebration, I would like to tell about Indian festivals. Celebration is one kind of enjoyment that we feel and love to do with happiness. We can say that whatever action has been done/happened to enjoy an event/occasion is celebration. We all are used to celebrating a birthday or anniversary or other such occasions or events. We celebrate a birthday with cake cutting and dancing and many more fun activities, but whatever we do to enjoy an event is called a celebration. Birthdays, anniversaries, office parties, and all are celebrations, but they are not festivals. A festival is related to community or religion.

A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic or aspect of that community.  It’s usually a religious or cultural event. In simple words, festival is a celebration that is marked by a community and it’s a culture too. It is celebrated under tradition.In Canada, Halloween, Remembrance Day, Christmas all are festivals. In India, every state has about 20 to 25 grand festivals for celebration. For example, Rakshabandhan, Diwali, Uttarayan, Holi, Navratri, Eid, Republic Day are some of most important festivals.

From all these festivals, the one I most like is called Diwali. Today I would like to tell you about Diwali and how I celebrated Diwali this year in Canada. Diwali is the Hindu festival of lights. Diwali is a 5-day long celebration. This is one of the most popular festivals of Hinduism. The festival is associated with Laxmi, Goddess of prosperity but regional tradition connects it to Sita, Ram, Krishna, Durga, Kali, Dhanvantari or Vishvakarma.

In the preparation of Diwali, celebrants clean, renovate and decorate their homes. They also make a Rangoli. Exchange sweets with family and friends. They decorate houses with different lights, flowers and Diya’s.

I would like to share my own experience of Diwali in Canada. This year Diwali was on Sunday, 27^th 2019. And as we know, Sunday is best day to celebrate anything.

I was so excited that finally my favorite festival was about to happen. My husband and kid were busy with Rangoli making. They were making Rangoli of Lego. Normally Rangoli is made with colours, but my kid is a fan of Lego so he had made Rangoli from Lego. And trust me it was so beautiful. I had invited my friends to celebrate Diwali at my place, so I was quite busy in preparation of food and all. I was supposed to make a Dahipuri(one appetizer) and Gulab Jamun(Sweet). My friends were supposed bring vegetable and rice dishes. We had a potluck arrangement. My all work had been finished and now was time to be  ready for celebration. In our tradition, we generally wear a sari(ladies) and boys wear a kurta. I wore a sari and my two boys were also in traditional cloths. Everybody came to my home, and we enjoyed a lot and we wished each other with “Happy Diwali”. One of my friends told a Diwali Story. We had a beautiful dinner together, and exchange sweets and laughter. This was my unforgettable Diwali ever.