My first Diwali

It is already some weeks ago when I went with my roommates to an Indian family. One of the AIESECers invited us to his family to celebrate DIWALI with them. It was awesome!

But what is actually Diwali? Wikipedia say:

“Diwali […] known as the ‘festival of lights’, is an important five-day festival in Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, occurring between mid-October and mid-November. For Hindus, Diwali is the most important festival of the year and is celebrated in families by performing traditional activities together in their homes. Deepavali is an official holiday in India, […].

The name ‘Diwali’ is a contraction of ‘Deepavali’ contraction […], which translates into "row of lamps". Diwali involves the lighting of small clay lamps […] filled with oil to signify the triumph of good over evil. During Diwali, all the celebrants wear new clothes and share sweets and snacks with family members and friends. […]

Diwali commemorates the return of Lord Rama, along with Sita and Lakshman, from his fourteen-year-long exile and vanquishing the demon-king Ravana. In joyous celebration of the return of their king, the people of Ayodhya, the Capital of Rama, illuminated the kingdom with earthen diyas (oil lamps) and burst firecrackers.”

For me it was like a mixture of Christmas and Sylvester. First we went to Bhavi’s house where he lives with his parents, his grandmother and his sister. It was near Nanal Nagar a Kreisverkehr in Hyderabad. Their house is a bit hidden in one of the little streets. It is really a nice place to live, it was almost quiet, there were a lot of trees, less garbage and a small park.

After our arrival we were invited to have some small snacks:

Later we went to his uncle & aunt which moved to Hyderabad some weeks ago. There we had tea and some snacks again. Indians are really hospitably. We had a really good afternoon because we talked a lot, laughed a lot and we played badminton.

About 7 pm we went back to Bhavi’s house and we hoped to get something to eat because all of us were a bit hungry. But we didn’t get anything at this time. Indians have dinner around 9 pm so it was too early. When we came back – The show began! All the neighbors entered the streets and they started to burn the crackers. But they are really dangerous! You have to be fast! It is not like in Germany where you first burn the cracker and then throw it away. You have to but the cracker on the floor, burn it and run away. They also have really big ones. I saw a 1000 piece cracker. It tooks 2 minutes to burst the whole cracker. About 9 pm we went upstairs to the top of the building and started the burn the rockets but some of them flew directly back to the terrace and exploded on the ground or on the streets. And also one cracker hurt me at one of my toes – it was one of the 1000 piece crackers – not funny.