happy deepavali

deepavali or diwali is also known as ‘festival of light’. many people has the mistaken idea that deepavali is an ‘indian new year’ just as chinese celebrate ‘gong xi fa cai’ – the chinese new year and malays ‘hari raya puasa’ – the malay new year. i know i do too… right until my late 20s, only i realised it was not. (oh good lord, now you know i’m over late 20 years of age!).

as deepavali is not a new year for the indians, it is consider a religious festival. the meaning of deepavali has all the religious significance in it. (something to do with thanking the god and all that stuff). many of my indian christian friends always complained to me that people always thought they would be celebrating deepavali. so they have to explain no no, deepavali is a religious festival of the hindus and i’m a christian not hindu so i don’t celebrate it.

when then is the tamil new year? it falls on 14 april, during the month of chitthirai. and on this day, all indians, no matter what religion, can get to celebrate it.

i wonder why the tamil new year is not as big as the new year for the malays and chinese.

and speaking of indian christians getting fed up of people thinking they celebrate deepavali, i as a chinese christian, sometimes get fed up of of people thinking i don’t celebrate chinese new year! come on lah, friends, don’t be silly. it is the new year of the chinese and i’m a chinese through and through so i do celebrate it… except minus the religious aspect of buddhism closely related to chinese new year.

oops. coming back to deepavali (which actually is the subject of this post!), do you know why sometimes it is known as ‘diwali’ instead of ‘deepavali’?

The word “Diwali” is the corruption of the Sanskrit word “Deepavali” – Deepa meaning light and Avali, meaning a row. It means a row of lights and indeed illumination forms its main attraction.
read more of this here.

if it is a corrupted word, i feel we shouldn’t use it…. so no happy diwali to you all but HAPPY DEEPAVALI to you all indians who celebrate this festival of light!

note: i’m going to SAPR’UK all i can eat at the penang state deepavali open house this saturday. yahoo! food, here i come!