Bringing the Hindu Festival of Lights to America
Author Chitra Divakaruni reflects on the Indian holiday Diwali, and how its practice and meaning have evolved in the years since she immigrated to America
By Chitra Divakaruni
I arrived in America—to the Midwest, in particular—as a graduate student of literature in the 1970s. For the first time, I was studying writers like Faulkner, Ellison, Pynchon, and Morrison in their proper context. They brought alive an America startlingly, exhilaratingly different from anything I’d experienced in India—and worlds away from the few Hollywood movies that made their way to my city, Kolkata.
I had always lived at home, under the eagle eye of a stern extended family, but now I lived in a dorm, with the freedom of sleeping and waking when I felt like it, and trying exotic new foods at the cafeteria. Burgers! Pizza! Cincinnati chili! Apple pie! Best of all were the weekend parties. I never developed much of a taste for alcohol, but I loved the dances my new friends taught me. Each weekend I performed the Bump, the Hustle, and various disco steps. What I lacked in skill, I made up for with enthusiasm.
When that first fall started edging towards winter, the days grew shorter, and the trees lost their leaves. I wasn’t used to such a stark change of seasons. A creeping anxiety set in. As I stared at the bare branches all around me, I realized for the first time how much I had left behind: family and friends, but more than that, an entire community to celebrate with.
It was the season of Diwali, the festival of lights in India, and for the first time I’d be observing it alone, holding back tears, breaking the campus’s fire-safety rule by lighting a candle on a makeshift altar in the corner of my dorm room. I couldn’t stop thinking about how, halfway around the world, my friends and family would be dressed in their best, lighting sparklers and bursting firecrackers, singing and dancing and feeding each other far too many sweets.
For as far back as I can remember, Diwali has been my favorite festival. There’s something in the air in Kolkata at that time—maybe it is the clear autumn skies with cotton-candy clouds; or the long-awaited cooler weather; or the gathering of friends and extended family who come from smaller towns to experience the sophisticated festivities in the state’s capital; or the prayers that filled the temples with joy and hope and the incessant ringing of bells; or the lights that we all put up—lamps or electric bulbs—no matter if we lived in a mansion or a little flat; or the shamianas, the colorful tents where the earthen images of goddess the Kali, constructed by artists whose families had done this for generations, were decorated in silks and worshiped.
“It was the season of Diwali, the festival of lights in India, and for the first time I’d be observing it alone, holding back tears, breaking the campus’s fire-safety rule by lighting a candle on a makeshift altar in the corner of my dorm room.”
The festive crackle and boom of fireworks were everywhere, their acrid smell would linger in our hair, in our new clothes. Yes, we all got new clothes to wear as we went from one festivity to another. As a child who came from a family of modest means, this was doubly special, because I was given only two sets of new clothes each year: one on my birthday, and the other at Diwali, with strict instructions not to damage or outgrow them until next year.
Diwali was one of my earliest introductions to the rich polytheistic tradition of India. As Bengalis in Kolkata, we worshiped the goddess Kali, destroyer of evil. But many of my non-Bengali friends worshiped the goddess Lakshmi, bringer of prosperity, at that time. For my South Indian friends, the occasion was the victory of the god Krishna over demon king Narakasura. For my North Indian friends, it was the return of the god Ram and the goddess Sita in victory to the city of Ayodhya. It didn’t matter. We participated in each other’s festivities and enjoyed the different treats from the different cultures: laddus, mysore pak, pendas and, of course, rasgullas, the quintessential Bengali sweet made from fresh cheese cooked in syrup.
When I moved to the West Coast for my PhD studies, I finally found a community of Indians. There weren’t many of us in those early days, and most had limited finances, so we couldn’t celebrate in a grand way. But the advantage of this was that we all celebrated together, weaving the many strands of our customs into one beautiful tapestry. In that first year, we took over a small hall on campus for an evening of prayer, followed by Bollywood songs and a potluck feast. I was asked to make rasgullas. I had never made any, but I had observed my mother rolling the balls effortlessly between her palms and sliding them into boiling syrup. How difficult could it be? Quite hard, in fact. They came out hard as rocks and I was permanently (and thankfully) demoted to clean-up.
I often ponder what the victory of light over darkness means in my life, as a woman, and an immigrant, living in America in the 21st century.
After I got married and had children, the meaning of Diwali, and how I celebrated it, changed once again. It became an opportunity to pass on the deeper meanings of my culture to my children. I told them all the stories about Diwali that I could gather up. (On trips to India, I filled my suitcase with copies of Amar Chitra Katha, the illustrated comic book series that presented the stories of our epics—on which these festivals are based—to young readers.) Diwali became a child-centric party at our home, where I encouraged the kids to reenact the stories of Ram and Sita returning in triumph to their kingdom. (Hanuman the monkey god was by far the favorite character in this story.) We also involved the children in the making of traditional sweets. Both my sons learned to make sandesh, another Bengali sweet. (Alas, we still never mastered the rasgullas.)
The highlight of the evening was the sparklers that I bought during Fourth of July celebrations and hoarded carefully until the fall. We would light them surreptitiously in our backyard, keeping an eye out for the police because it was not exactly sanctioned. I think the children got a big kick out of that. Recently, when I asked some of them—now grown—what they most remembered about those early Diwali celebrations, they all said, “Forbidden fireworks!”
In recent years, I’ve noticed that the observance of Diwali has changed across the United States. I live in Houston, which has one of the largest Indian American populations, so I know these changes intimately. I don’t regard them in a negative light—I’ve never been a particularly nostalgic person—but one of the things that does bother me about contemporary Diwali celebrations in large American cities is that each community now seems to celebrate separately.
We have a number of temples in Houston: The Meenakshi Temple, the Ashtalakshmi Temple, the Iskcon Temple, the Swaminarayan Temple, the Krishna Vrundavana Temple, and the Houston Durgabari are just a few of these. Each one is supported primarily by one (often language and state-based) community and performs Diwali in their own way. There is a tacit assumption that theirs is the right way, or at least the best way, to celebrate Diwali. Our larger numbers have now divided us. Instead of identifying as Indian, we segment ourselves as Bengalis, Gujaratis, or Tamilians according to the languages we speak. This troubles me. As Indian Americans, it’s crucial for us to be a unified whole. In this wholeness lies our strength, particularly in these fractured times.
As I grow older, the spiritual aspect of Diwali has become more significant. I often ponder what the victory of light over darkness means in my life, as a woman, and an immigrant, living in America in the 21st century.
For me, the light of Diwali symbolizes resistance, faith, and courage amid darkness and danger. It is the flame that burns in every woman and empowers us to fight against injustice. All we must know is how to turn inward and get in touch with it.
Today, my observance of Diwali is a balance of public celebration and private introspection. I dress up in a festive sari. I go to the temple and take in the fragrance of incense and flowers, the chanting of timeless prayers in Sanskrit, the lamp-worship, and, of course, the food! At night I go with friends to the traditional folk dances that take place in rented high school gyms—though I’m still an amateur—and sometimes during the dandiya dance, performed with colored sticks, I hit my partners’ knuckles instead of connecting with their dandiyas!
But I also try to find some time, usually in the evening when the household has quieted down, to go to my home altar and light a lamp and think about what all this really signifies. I focus on the Light that my little lamp symbolizes, and I pray that it might shine brighter in hearts and homes all across the world.
Chitra Divakaruni is an award-winning writer of novels such as the Palace of Illusions, The Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart, and Independence. Her books have been translated into 29 languages; several have been made into films. She teaches Creative Writing at the University of Houston and is on the Advisory Board of Daya, an organization helping survivors of domestic abuse.