Happy Diwali

On October the 21th one of India’s most important festival was held, called Diwali. It lasts for four days as Sanj told me. Corresponding to its importance, Diwali is comparative to Christmas. During Diwali, whole India is lightened. In former days, oil lamps were used, but now the switched to light chains, which are hung up actually everywhere. The lights are to show the pitris, the ghosts of the deceased the way to heaven. There are three important customs being followed during Diwali. First, people are paying visits to each other. Second, everybody gifts sweets to their close friends and last there is a lot of noise in the streets due to fire works. These fire works start often already some days before when little kids crack the crackers in the evening. People in addition to that wear their newest clothes, which are often times especially bought for Diwali. Nevertheless, I haven’t seen so many people wearing expensive clothes, neither at work nor in the company. But maybe, they wear these clothes more in private. But what the Indians definitely don’t do in private is cracking crackers. Especially on Saturday, I had the impression that the third world war has been declared. It was incredible loud in the streets and dangerous as well. In particular you should pay attention to the small green ones. I still could feel the shockwave, even though I stood at least 5 meters away from the explosion. I don’t know what they have put inside these crackers, but I am sure these ones would be banned in Germany, definitely. I heard that last year, even eight people were killed by rockets or crackers and hundreds were badly injured, lost one of their eyes or burnt their hand. Although Diwali is considered to be one of the most important festivals in India, shops are open as if it were a normal working day. This by the way applies to all the festivals. At least they stay back from work. But as I am working for a business process outsourcing company, I had to work of course. All the others went for a trip. Most of them went to the beautiful beaches of Goa. Those of us, who stayed back, spent a wonderful Saturday evening in Asia’s and Ula’s house with a lot of alcohol and good Hungarian food. I have to add that on Thursday already, two days before Diwal actually really started, we attended to an Aiesec meeting in order to show us what Diwali is about. We all were supposed to dress in Indian clothes, what meant that the girls wore a saree and the guys a kurta. We spent some awesome hours on the roof of one of the Aiesecers house with sweets and masala tea.