Happy Diwali! Today we celebrate the Hindu religious festival. Often known as the festival of light, it lasts for five days and symbolizes the victory of light over darkness. 1.5 million lanterns were lit across India on the first day of the festival. Here at USC, student organizations are keeping up with their traditions. Donny Assefa has more on how students are celebrating Diwali.
One common tradition is the lighting of special clay lamps known as diyas. These lamps which are usually placed at temples, houses, and rivers light up the night and compliment the colorful decorations on homes.
The holiday is celebrated by people wearing traditional colorful attire gathering and exchanging gifts with loved ones. Stunning lights and fireworks are a big component of Diwali. The holiday spans five days and celebrates the arrival of the Hindu New Year.
We spoke with the presidents of the Hindu Student Organization and the U-S-C Southern California Indo-Americans about how they are celebrating.
The president of the Hindu Student Organization Prasanth Reddy says here at USC, they welcome everyone to celebrate Diwali.
PRASHANTH REDDY: We’ll be starting with the traditional Hindu Prayer to Goddess Lakshmi, following which we have a few cultural performances including a Japanese Drum performance by Kazan Taiko, a team from UCLA joining us to perform a Punjabi dance. These along with cultural performances from our very own student teams. In Hinduism, that’s one thing we all consider important, the concept of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” meaning the entire world is our family. So irrespective of culture, ethnicity, and religion, they’re all our family. So bringing diverse and cultural teams into our celebration is the best way to do it.
That’s reinforced by Ashish Kumar, A leader of the U-S-C Southern California Indo-Americans.
ASHISH KUMAR: we are planning to have some cultural performances followed by dinner at Bovard Auditorium so our chief guest is going to be the consulate general of India, the office. So it will be coming and we’ll be celebrating Diwali function together.
Both student organizations are hosting events for Diwali on October 30th.
Despite no U-S-C sanctioned events for the holiday, student organizations still feel supported and are carrying out their own celebrations.
Here again is Prasanth Reddy.
PRASHANTH REDDY: I guess the student organizations themselves are doing a pretty good job at celebrating the Indian festivals and the Indian culture, and the university has been pretty helpful and supportive when it comes to funding or providing the venue for celebrations. So they are very supportive of the Indian and Hindu heritage.
There are worlds to be discovered for the first time or remembered. Here’s Ashish Kumar.
ASHISH KUMAR: the motto that we followed is Home Away from Home. We see so many students coming from India every year, every semester. So we just want to give them that thing that they feel that they’re home.
For Annenberg Media I’m Donny Assefa.