Yesterday the Indian People celebrated Diwali. I have learned that this is one of the most important hindu festivals and represents the start of the Hindu New Year and is celebrated as the victory of light over darkness.

I felt really lucky to have been invited to a young Indian family’s house to see their rituals and costumes. When we were on our way(Anca was there, too), our host let us know that they have taken the party to another Indian friend of them that lives in Germany for more than 25 years.

We walked along the river Rhine to get to their house and for the first time I realized how beautiful Bonn is. Only a few houses are build on the river’s deck and the house we spent Diwali was one of them. It is an amazing 3 levels house, really well organised. At the first level it was only a huge living room, I thing like 120 square meters or bigger. Second level – children rooms and third floor (and the best view) the parents room. Every floor had one or two bathrooms. Every room had a wall that was only glass, and they were all really warm and bright. Our host, an Indian shiny man with a big smile on his face and one of the most welcoming attitudes, works in the board games business so he had a lot of games in the house and a room only for movies. All the rooms had only the basic parts of furniture which made the house look even bigger. It is definably the most beautiful house I have ever been in.

Lots of small candles were lit and placed in houses because Diwali is also named the “Festival of Lights”.
They set up their altar and started singing. A young woman was leading. Her smile and joy were really honest and she was wearing a beautiful traditional blue dress. We prayed for common sense to the main tree Gods of the Indian religion. More people arrived. We stopped to welcome them. In orthodox-ism we never stop during prayers. They said they have millions of Gods and their Gods are everywhere and good. I am starting to like their religion. The prayer was a special moment, even for me and Anca because they made sure we were integrated in the small rituals. We felt connected and felt more like home, even if all those people were strangers for us.

At the end of our prays, the young woman that was leading the ceremony placed a red spot on our foreheads and a read wire on the left hand. Men also got a rel line on their forehead and a red wire on their right hand.

We had dinner late in the night as, even if more of the traditional dishes were already prepared, the Indian women had to prepare the bread. The traditional way of making it is by frying in oil round and slim pieces of dough. The rest of us were looking or just having nice conversation served with a glass of wine or other drink. We sat at the table and started eating- no rituals needed here. No meet was found by me and Anca in any of the dishes. All vegetarian and very tasty, maybe a little bit too spicy for us at a certain moment.
After dinner all of us played card games.

We reached home at 3 in the morning.
It was defensible the nicest evening since I have left Romania.