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Diwali, known as the festival of lights, kicks off on Wednesday as the biggest holiday of the year for South Asian communities around the world – but they will not be celebrating the same way or even for the same reasons.
Themes like lights, family and food are all visible during Diwali, but some people do not want to celebrate the festival.
"Just try and ask someone in India what would you do with 15 versions," said Sirish Rao, co-founder and artistic director of the Vancouver Indian Summer Festival.
A devotee lights oil lamps at a religious ceremony during Diwali in Sri Lanka last year. The holiday is celebrated across the world. (Dinuka Liyanawatte / Reuters)
Diwali is celebrated in many major religions around the world and, for each faith, it marks different stories and histories.
For some, it's to celebrate the return of the Hindu deity Rama after years of exile, or to honor the goddess of wealth. For others, it marks the passing of the Jain spiritual leader Mahavira, or the liberation of Sikh Guru Hargobind from prison.
"It's endlessly interpretable and I think that's exactly what makes it such an important festival – to realize that there is no one story that we share," Rao said.
He cautioned against treating Diwali as a singular event.
"There's a danger of making a monolith of anything," he said.
"From politics to the way we live we understand societies, we have to be aware that there are so many ways of doing things – and that's a good thing."
A woman decorates her house on the eve of the Hindu festival of Diwali in a slum in Mumbai, India, last year. The different ways of Diwali fall across religious, geographic and cultural lines. (Danish Siddiqui / Reuters)
Range of celebrations
Those differences do not just fall along religious lines. As a holiday celebrated across the world, geography, culture and family tradition also play a role.
"For me, one thing we do every year is my parents give me sister and I think about it as a form of sharing abundance," said Milan Singh, who has a PhD in communications studies at Simon Fraser University.
She's an Indo-Fijian Canadian who celebrates Diwali under the Hindu faith.
"You'll see how it's celebrated across India and within the diaspora," Singh said.
For some, though, the importance is the underlying elements that are shared beyond borders and religions.
"Because so many cultures intersect – so many stories intersect – at Diwali time, it 's really a time when we can celebrate a common theme of light overtaking darkness," said Paneet Singh, a playwright and filmmaker based in Burnaby who practices the Sikh faith.
"That can be righteousness, it can be fair, it can be equity – whatever someone takes it to mean."
With files from The Early Edition
