Subh Divali

I went to the Hindu celebration of Divali on Friday night with the neighbour and her son. Divali is the Festival of Light. It’s celebrated by Hindus all over the world. To celebrate, we had a parade followed by a celebration at the temple. There were cars & trucks decorated with lights and people walked, sang and danced carrying lights and torches. There was a group of little girls who were all dressed up in red who rode in the truck at the front of the parade. I think we walked about 5 km. There were about 400 of us walking. Dispersed throughout the walkers were trucks with groups of musicians on them who played music which we danced to while we walked or we shouted and clapped. Someone would shout Subh (which sounds sort of like shoop) and we would reply DIVALI. Along the way we ran into another parade (each temple has their own parade). The police were even out to direct traffic because all along the parade route cars and people were lined up to watch. It was quite a novelty for them to have me there. Everyone was thrilled to have the ‘white girl’ from the neighbourhood in the celebrations. The all told me what to sing and got me dancing. They kept coming to see if I was having fun and thanking me for coming to celebrate Divali with them. It was all very sweet. Being the only white girl in 400 people I did stick out a bit. You should have seen some of the looks of the people along the route. Either that or my dancing was funny…could go either way I guess!! The kids seemed especially fascinated with my presence. I made a little friend who walked the entire route with me glued to my side, holding my hands or nearly burning me with her torch. She was enamoured with hearing me say Divali so she shouted Subh the whole way. My throat was so sore at the end of it!!

Back at the temple after the walk there was food (of course) and entertainment including a group of young Hindustani hip-hop dancers that I like to call N’Sync Suriname. I had so much fun participating. It’s definitely something I wouldn’t get to do in Canada. Here are some pictures.

All the little girls dressed up. Aren't they beautiful.


One of the groups of musicians do a pre-parade performance


The lead truck that carried the girls


Along the parade route walking, dancing and singing with our lights


My little friend with her torch


And finally the lone/token white girl in the crowd.