Diwali (Revised 26 Oct)

Sunday, 19 October 2014

India's "festival season" concludes with Diwali, and this is Diwali week. The week climaxes with Gujarati New Year on Friday, but the celebrations have already started and will continue for several more days. Homes and businesses are decorated with lights -- much like Christmas in the U.S.

Lights on a bungalow in our "society" (neighborhood). I can watch these from my kitchen window.

Our driver, Sachin, has made sure that we have some lights as well. I couldn't figure out why it was going to take "most of the day" to hang a string of lights. Little did I know that he had to make the string of lights from LED strips, a control box, and a roll of twisted-pair wire. He's also going to decorate his sister's flat, his aunt's house, and his house in the same way. That's a lot of work!

I've got lots of "dyas" (oil lamps) to add as well. I'll get those out tomorrow.

Monday, 20 October 2014

I added the lamps this evening:

Here's a new video shot:

Tuesday, 21 October 2014

Since I couldn't find the Diwali lanterns I wanted, I decided to make some instead. Just finding construction paper was a challenge. I also bought some fabric, and the shop owner was upset because 2 meters isn't enough fabric to make a garment. I tried to say that I understood that -- that I wasn't going to make a kurta. Eventually he sold me the fabric anyway (40 Rs / m, or around $0.60 / yd).

The proper names for these is "akaash kandil", which translates as "sky lantern". The round one on the left was easy to make -- except that I now know that I'll need nine of the decorative pieces rather than the six that I used. The square-ish one was more of an effort. I started by following some instructions on the Internet (of course), but that was a disaster. However, attempting that made me realize that the basic shape was a "cuboctahedron" which is composed of fairly easy-to-make squares and equilateral triangles. It would have been a lot more straightforward if I had access to a compass (as in geometry, not navigation).

     The kandils are  supposed to be lit from within (they are "lanterns"), but mine are made of fairly opaque construction paper, so it doesn't matter -- I don't have access to electricity and lights anyway.

Thursday, 23 October 2014
Diwali (Deepavali)

Lon is better, so we did a short (1 hr) walk this evening, dodging "crackers" and admiring the lights.

This is the Jalaram Bapa temple near our bungalow. Note the Roman candle going off at the far right.

Friday, 24 October 2014

"Cracker" (firecracker) debris on the street. There was a lot of noise last night!

Saturday, 25 October 2014

Last photo (I'm pretty sure, but you never know!):

The Amba Mata Mandir, Vapi's largest temple that I know of, all decked out for Diwali.