The festival of lights!
Diwali is the Hindu festival of lights celebrated every year in autumn in the northern hemisphere (spring in southern hemisphere.) The festival spiritually signifies the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, knowledge over ignorance, and hope over despair. Its celebration includes millions of lights shining on housetops, outside doors and windows, around temples and other buildings in the communities.
This year, I got to spend Diwali with my friend Amrit and her family. She’s from India and lives in Pune with her mother, father, little brother and their dog. She invited me and Laura from Colombia to her house to spend Diwali with her family. We were given a few days off school so everyone who wanted to leave campus could do so.
We left campus at 4 in the evening after school. Her parents were waiting for us on campus and we had left the campus by 4:45. A few miles after we left the school, the car’s engine switched off and we all had to hop out and push the car. The car started again and a few miles later, the engine switched off AGAIN! 😂 We had to push the car even further this time. This happened about 2 more times. We decided to call a school jeep instead. After waiting on the side of the road for about 20 minutes, the jeep came and we headed to her society. She lives in a very beautiful society known as ‘The Woods’ It had many apartments that were all beautifully decorated with lights and rangolis for the celebration. After settling in, we had a very delicious vegan dinner prepared by her mom. This was the first of many delicious meals. Over the next few days, we were able to understand the area in which we lived in better. Her parents took us on a tour of Pune. We got to see different temples in the area and we visited Pune University and drove around the area.
On the day of Diwali, we went on a little shopping trip around Pune. We went to Decathlon, a sports store and bought sporting equipment. We then headed to Phoenix Mall, had lunch and continued shopping. In the evening, we burst fire crackers in her society and had a little dance party. We got to wear beautiful Indian clothing. Everyone in her township was bursting fire crackers and there was a lot of air and noise pollution. Her mum cooked up a storm for us to celebrate the evening. It was such a good day!
On the last day, before we left for the campus, Laura and I went to Lakshmi Road for street shopping with Amrit’s dad. We got to walk around to different shops and buy anything we liked. There was so much variety it was so hard to choose what I wanted to get. After this, we went back to her house, packed our suitcases and headed back to MUWCI.
I had such an amazing time over the Diwali break. Amrit’s family was so hospitable and welcoming. It was an experience that I will never forget. Enjoy some pictures from Diwali and look in the photo gallery section for more pictures!