What does Diwali mean to you?

veron11746

Hi everyone,

I'm Veronica, and I'm a Commercial Analyst Manager here at the gaff. As well as my usual duties getting my head stuck into data, one of the things that I've been focusing on recently is helping people here in the office learn about other people's cultures and histories through events and discussion. As Diwali is coming up (27th October), we wanted to make sure people had an opportunity to learn about it and what it means to different people, so we're going to be having a learning lunch with the folks here at the office.

For those of you who haven't heard of Diwali or know much about it, it's often called the Festival of Lights, and lots of people celebrate it differently. For Sikhs this is a important day because it celebrates the release from prison of the sixth guru, Guru Hargobind, and 52 other princes with him, in 1619. His return is celebrated by lighting the Golden Temple and this tradition continues today. For Hindus, Diwali signifies the triumph of light over darkness and good over evil. Some celebrate it as a celebration in honour of the return of Lord Rama from a 14-year exile, during which he defeated the demon king Ravana. Villagers lit the path home with lamps and illuminated the city in honour of Rama’s victory. Other Hindus celebrate Diwali to commemorate Lord Krishna’s defeat over King Narakasura, an evil King who held tens of thousands of inhabitants captive. I am aware that some Hindus celebrate it for a different reason, as there are many stories in Hindu scriptures, I'm not knowledgeable on those other stories so would love to hear them from those who celebrate differently.

Because of all these differences, we'd love to get a wide range of experience and hear from a lot of different people about your Diwali experience.

For me, a memory that really stands out is inviting my neighbours around when I was young. Along with all of our friends and family arriving to celebrate, we'd invite our neighbours around to try the food and celebrate with our fireworks display, and have the opportunity to share good memories with one another over a home-cooked meal. It always struck me as a positive celebration to share with the people you love how much they mean to you, and I look forward to it every year.

I'd love to hear your stories so that we can share these different experiences with the rest of the team here at HQ, and bring people together on the community to learn about something new. What does Diwali mean to you?

pamfletch

veron11746 thanks that’s more than I knew before reading this thread.💐

eileenusher

veron11746 Thanks I have some Sikh friends so knew Diwali is the festival light, I've watched the celebrations on TV with them from places such as India is all ways looks spectacular.

frenchielove

veron11746 I worked with and have Sikh friends so I do know a bit about it, but that was great info, thank you. 🤗

ungourin

veron11746 lights

alecalexandrou

veron11746

All I know is that is a celebration linked to religion.
And living in an area which has a high population from the countries that this Diwali originates from, all I know is that each year there is an enormous amount of money wasted on fireworks which make a lot of noise.

elli87

veron11746 Thanks for post. This is something I found from Google:
Diwali is the Hindu, five-day Festival of Lights that celebrates the triumph of good over evil. The word Diwali literally means 'row of lights' and originated from the Sanskrit words for lamp 'dipa' and row 'vali', the festival is also called Deepavali.

davidevans0000

veron11746 never heard of that word before Diwali.

pw6049

veron11746 thanks for sharing this as I've never heard of it before.

davidvarley

veron11746
Nothing much all I know is its a religious holiday for Hindus.

veron11746

pamfletch I'm glad it was helpful! 😃

veron11746

eileenusher That's lovely, nice to hear about you all watching it together 😄

veron11746

frenchielove jackjohnjoseph pw6049 weetinamc bluenose5
Thank you all, really glad you found the information interesting! 😀

bluenose5

Sorry but never hear of it. Thank you for your post lot's of interesting information about Diwali which I Never knew. Good luck on there Day.

weetinamc

i hadnt heard of it before this.thanks for the information

standardbearer

Its celebrated in Southall.
Im all for Good over Evil and Light over Darkness, knowledge over ignorance.
Some of the fireworks can be a little dodgy and stored where you least expect to find them.

veron11746

standardbearer I'm glad you like the messaged of the festival.
Absolutely, have to be safe about where you get the fireworks from, so trusted retailers are important and where they are carefully put on private property. Some people also just light divas (candles) as a way to celebrate rather than fireworks 🕯️

jackjohnjoseph

I'd heard of Diwali and it lasts a few days but I had no idea of the festival origins... Thank you

nefarius

I was brought up in a non religious family.
The only tradition I have is Easter Bunnies and Santa.

standardbearer

veron11746
Hi Veron
Probably not the same light but it reminded me of George and his ideals.
Ive worked with Sieks who are a proud lot . Thats no sin.

munglespoon

My family do celebrate, so thanks for starting this topic. Maybe if you have a role making your colleagues more aware of other cultures, you could put a particular focus on helping the educators understand why racist content should be removed from the forum.

paul_d_

munglespoon Thanks for sharing your thoughts & views on the community.

As a self moderating community we rely heavily on our members to report posts that they feel is inappropriate to us. I hope that I can reassure you that the educator team will absolutely remove any posts which overtly or covertly engage in any racist behaviour intended to make members feel actively unwelcome on the community, just as we would other kinds of discrimination.

Let me open up a little on how we action these types of report (in a general sense) Some content reports we can action immediately as they are blatantly obvious for all to see, however for some reports we may send a member a private message to gain a little context & to gauge how the member feels and how they may have been affected by a members post before we decide upon an action (or if appropriate no action).

We are human, we certainly don’t know it all, and we can make mistakes so the context provided by the member is really valuable to us when actioning a report.

If we have not been as good at communicating that in the past then I can only apologise & hope that we can work together as a community to make all our members experiences better.

If you or any other member would like to raise any concerns we would welcome them, this will help to make the team better and create an even more unified community.

If we’ve let you down, the most important thing is to keep discussing with the team member in question so this helps them learn more about your concerns. If you think it’s past that point, you can raise any concerns by private message to Roxy or Arletta directly.

Getting back to the topic of the thread & the meaning that it has for the community, It would be amazing if you could share your families experience of Diwali and what it means to you & your family.

Paul.