British Columbians gear up for annual Diwali celebration
CBC
British Columbia's sizeable South Asian Canadian population is gearing up to celebrate by sharing good food and lighting lamps ahead of the annual Diwali celebration.
Diwali — also known as Deepavali — is the annual festival of lights, which is celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains across the world.
Although it is set to start on Nov. 1, according to the Hindu calendar, the five-day-long festival often has weeks of lead-up and occupies many weeks for those celebrating.
While the traditional significance of the festival varies by culture — for instance, Hindus celebrate Diwali as the return of the deity Rama after years of exile — they all share the common theme of good triumphing over evil.
Most who observe the festival share sweets and delicacies with each other, wear new clothes as they celebrate with family, and light up lamps, candles and fireworks.
In Metro Vancouver, sweet shops and South Asian supermarkets were full of people loading up for the holiday on Tuesday.
One of them, Ravi Dhot, travelled to the region all the way from Nelson, B.C., to see his parents for the first time in six years.
"Our parents just came from India. Actually, we just came; we went to the airport just to pick them up," he told CBC News at a supermarket in Surrey, B.C.
"They could have landed in Castlegar. But we thought we need to bring all these things. Why not make it a trip, right?"
Nelson — about 420 kilometres east of Vancouver — doesn't have any Indian sweet shops, according to Dhot, who said his wife asked him to buy a range of items.
"She can't travel. She's seven months pregnant in Nelson," he said, smiling. "Yes, she's waiting ... I think she's got a lot of cravings for this kind of food right now.
"It's going to last me like 15 days for me and my wife, so yeah, that's going to be one of the special trips for me," he said.
Dhot said he was looking to buy diyas, small clay lamps that are traditionally lit with South Asian clarified butter called ghee.
Shiva Reddy, a sommelier with the Michelin-starred Burdock & Co restaurant in Vancouver, said that ghee is often traditionally used in many religious rituals — as well as many of the traditional sweets that are bought around Diwali.
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