Photo feature: Diaspora celebrates Diwali across the globe

The festival of Diwali was celebrated with fervor and tradition across globe by Indian diaspora now that it has attained an international recognition much like Chinese New Year, world knows Diwali as the festival of light. Indians abroad clad in new attire and distributed sweets and savories among friends and relatives to celebrate and share the joy of Diwali.

"Lighting of the house and bursting a few sparklers is part of the ritual. Crackers that make sound have been largely replaced by more and more interesting sparklers- possibly a sign that your celebration shouldn’t become a nuisance for the neighborhood; especially if it’s a multi- cultural one," said Manisha, wife of Ravi Thakur, Infosys vice president & portfolio head, Greater Atlanta Area.

"I for one, find this a great opportunity to have my father, my wife’s mother, my daughters, their husbands and most important grand son with us on this occasion. Being from Bihar, my mother-in-law makes it a point to make “thecua” (a flour sugar sweet) and my wife will surely make shakarpara," said Binod Choudhary,  senior vice president. Infosys BPM.

"We really feel very happy and excited on festivals. In the USA there are our Indian community groups celebrating Indian festivals with Rangoli, sweets and traditional clothes. Even though My kids are born in Los Angeles they enjoy doing Puja and Aarti with us. We do have friends get together on Diwali but I still miss my family back home. I think the difference between celebrating Diwali here and back home is that miss busting fire works. Also I miss the small vendors on the streets of India selling diyas," said Rakhi Singh, wife of Anil Singh, head of technology at Veritas Investments, Inc. San Francisco.

"It was a great experience to celebrate Diwali here at Taiwan. My office also celebrated Diwali and so was the teachers in my Son's school. The teacher also asked my son to share the celebration pictures with her. Same for my company HR. It was indeed a great experience for us to see all these local people joining us in celebrating this wonderful Indian festival," said Rohit Naik, technical manager-MediaTek Hsinchu -Taiwan.

"For expats, it also is an occasion to instill connection with our traditions and values among our children. Me and my wife do the rituals starting from cleaning the house, to sweet preparation, to buying a new set of Kurta or, the dhanteras shopping. Setting up decorative lights surely helps in setting up the mood in advance, but Diya lighting on Diwali surely completes the full experience. We typically start the evening with Puja, then followed by visit to a couple of friends, or receiving friends," said Saurabh Singh, design lead at Petroleum Development Oman.

"Diwali is my favourite Indian festival and specially since I stay abroad and married to a foreigner I try and make it as authentic as possible.
So, as this year Diwali was on a working day I started my day as any other usual working day. However, also decided to log out on time to have a small celebration  in the evening. As the houses here have smoke detectors, we cannot light diyas everywhere and so a few days before Deepawali my husband helped me in decorating the house with battery led lights," said Shivalika De Cata — technical program manager, Capital one. UK.

"I explained the reason behind the celebrations to my husband as a quick revision to the Ram-Sita story. We'd a few Indian friends coming over to celebrate together this year, which was great and fun. We sat together to had our lovely vegetarian Indian food. As Diwali seems incomplete without lighting some crackers and luckily I managed to get some from an Indian store in the city this year which we lit after dinner. And That's how we celebrated the festival of lights while being thousands of miles away from home." De Cata added.

Designed and Compiled by: Rajeev Bhatt