Deutsche Diwali!

Hallo dear readers,

The last 2 weeks have been very hectic and also very very exciting for me. Now, I’m fully into my experiments in the lab at BVT, Paul Gordon strasse and also there have been some wonderful moments in my hostel. I found out that the place I live, Wichernstrasse, is actually a hotspot for many other Indians who were either studying here or working. We had a Diwali celebration in our hostel and I was thrilled about it. Diwali, also called as the Lichtfest, or the Festival of Lights, is a traditional Indian festival that is celebrated with great fervor during this period in India. I had never thought I would be able to celebrate it the same way here in Germany, but thanks to many old-timers in my hostel, we were able to organize a great show and pull it off. There were around 30 of us gathered in the party hall on Saturday evening and we had earlier in the day decorated the room with coloured papers, hangings, lights, traditional Indian floor drawings (called ‘kolam’ in my language) etc. Diwali has many interesting legends. It is celebrated to mark the return of a King called Rama many centuries before, (who is also worshipped as a God) after 14 years in the forest and then killing the Demon King Ravana. It is also celebrated to signify the killing of a demon called Narakasura by God Krishna, thus lighting the day with many lamps means, the end of darkness and the beginning of light or wisdom.

The triumph of good over evil.

We had also invited a few German friends and they were very interested to know more about this Lichtfest! We had lighted up the room with many lamps and it looked great. We began by first watching a movie called Rang de Basanti , and then we started off. We worship the Goddess Lakshmi on this day for prosperity and well-being. We had a traditional prayer called ‘Arthi’ where we show a lighted lamp to the picture of the Goddess while praying that everything should turn out well from this moment onwards. And everyone took turns to do that, including our german friends too!

Then we had some games like Dumb-charades and we were guessing the names of movies. Fireworks and crackers are a big part of the festival in India on this day and obviously I knew it wouldn’t be possible to do that here without scaring the neighborhood. But I was surprised again to know that we were actually allowed to have fire works that were without any noise and went not more than 3 metres high, and that was enough for us to have a great time.

Then we had our traditional Indian dinner ordered from an Indian restaurant (called Curry house, so you know its Indian) and then it was time for a Bollywood dance floor. The party was a real blast overall. And as if all this was not enough, I was invited by my friend and fellow DAAD stipend holder, Harish, from Heidelberg for the Diwali celebrations there in Heidelberg, next week.

It was a more bigger affair as it was organized by the HISA (Heidelberg Indian Students Association) and the format was like a programme with a large audience including many Indians (I had never seen so many here before!) and an equally large number of their German colleagues who were very curious and were expecting something interesting here in the Indische Lichtfest.

We started off with the traditional ‘Arthi’ and then a South Indian dance by one lady whose name I don’t remember (I was introduced to more than 20 new people that day). Harish, sung 3 songs and made a great hit with his first song called ‘Maa’ and was asked for a repeat. It was a stunning show overall, again with many games, lots of surprise gifts to people from the audience and great food, Indian of course and everyone dressed up in traditional Indian clothes. The finale was again a dance floor and I was amazed to find so many germans joining us there, particularly there was one guy who didn’t stop for a minute for almost 2 hours and was extremely well-versed in all the dance steps for Hindi songs! Me and my friends, who were mostly studying in Heidelberg or nearby Mannheim had a wonderful time and it was great fun.

I returned to my room late Sunday night and after such a Indian cultural treat, I was totally out of my usual form and it took me quite some time to get back into the german setup again, so when my colleagues asked me on Monday, “Hi Ram, Wie war denn dein Wochenende?”, it took me a long time to understand what they were actually asking.

Anyway, now I’m back to the lab-office-room mind frame and I hope things will go smoothly this week. It’s an important stage of my experiments and I must also report the results so far, to my supervisor. Ok, then I wish you all too a great and successful week ahead.

Till then..