Students Celebrate Hindu Festival of Lights

Diwali has been called the Indian Christmas, or the Hindu Hanukkah. Though both are flawed analogies, gift-giving and candle-lighting are also hallmarks of the South Asian holiday, which commemorates the return of the Hindu god Rama from his exile, and culminated last night with celebrations around the world.

Last night students gathered in the home of Lowell House Master and Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies Diana L. Eck to sing, pray and feast, marking the high-point of the yearly Hindu festival of lights. In the amber glow of dozens of diya (ceremonial candles), students sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor, chanting bhajans (devotional songs), reading excerpts from sacred texts and sharing stories about the festivals they had known in their childhood.

“We want to encourage a family atmosphere,” said Sheel C. Ganatra ’06, co-president of Dharma, the campus Hindu religious organization that sponsored the event. And most in attendance agreed that this year’s Diwali felt like a family affair. “The warmth of the candles matched the warmth of the hearts in the room,” according to Monica Rana ’06, who said memories of home brought her to tears at one point during the event.

Some students noted that there were other aspects of the festival missing besides family members. “I’ll miss the fireworks,” Gokul Madhavan ’08 said, disappointed that firecrackers are illegal in Massachusetts. “But I suppose we can always go to New Hampshire and set some off.”

The group has had trouble finding a suitable space for the ceremony in the past. Last year the event was held in the Junior Common Room of Eliot House, an improvement over three years ago, when dozens of people tried to cram into a common room in Dunster. The room was so cramped that a student caught fire when her hair came in contact with a candle.

In the front of the room, under a hanging portrait of the god Shiva that Eck borrowed from the Fogg Museum, the students set up an altar to display silver figures of the three gods most associated with the festival—Lakshmi, Sarasvati and Durga—as well as candles, fresh flowers and plates of nuts.

Students enjoyed traditional honey-soaked dough balls called gulab jamun, and gajar ka halwa, a sweet carrot dish.

Amit S. Patel ’07 sat on a rug tapping the tabla, a pair of Indian drums. Patel accompanied Om L. Lala ’06 and Rajiv Venkataramanan ’08 as they sang a bhajan to Shiva, a song they had learned while children in the same Hindu Saturday school. As the beat got faster, the whole room clapped along in rhythm.

Toward the end of the evening Akshay G. Lohitsa ’07 led the group in meditation and deep breathing, and spoke of the importance of relaxation in Harvard’s stressful atmosphere. “You can choose to open your eyes to that world you were in two hours ago,” Lohitsa said, “or you can open your eyes to the world you were in when your eyes were closed, a world in harmony, and see this world until the next Diwali.”