Diwali - Festival of Lights

Diwali is a five day festival celebrated by Hindu people around the world.  Commonly referred to as "festival of the lights" Diwali has as much meaning for Hindu people as say Christmas for Christians - it's their big one!

I love the sights and sounds of Diwali - here in Singapore and in other countries with significant Indian populations such as India (obviously), Malaysia and Nepal the streets are lit with luminous decorations.  Families burn lamp, candles or lanterns in their entry ways, and dress up in new and colourful clothes to befit the altogether colourful occasion.  In the evenings children burn sparklers and let off firecrackers.

The story of Diwali is a time honoured tale passed down through the generations.  It is LONG!  Here is a simple version for the kidlets....

THE STORY OF DIWALI

Many moons ago the great warrior Prince Rama lived with his beautiful wife Sita.  The terrifying Demon King Ravana who had twenty arms and ten heads, wanted Sita to be his own wife and one day kidnapped her escaping in his chariot.  Sita was very cleaver indeed and dropped her jewellery piece by piece from the chariot leaving a trail for Rama to follow.

Rama followed the trail of jewellery in search of Sita and along the way met the Monkey King, Hanuman.  The two became friends and Hanuman wanted to help Rama find Sita so he asked all the monkeys throughout the world to look for her and soon he discovered Sita was being held on an island.  The animal kingdom all helped Hanuman and his Monkey army build a bridge to the island and as soon as it was completed rushed across to wage a battle with evil Demon King Ravana and his army.

Rama killed the evil Ravana with a enchanted arrow and the world cheered for good had triumphed over evil.

Then Rama and Sita set off for home, a journey which took a very long long time.  Along the way people lit oil lamps to help them find their way.  Now every year at Diwali people light lamps, candles and lights to remember the story of Rama and Sita and how they triumphed over evil Ravana.

THE END

Here is what we got up to with Miss May this week to celebrate Diwali.

Rangoli is an Indian folkart undertaken mainly by women during festivals and on significant religious occasions.  Indeed during Diwali people decorate their entryways with beautiful Rangoli to warn off evil.  It involves mapping out a pattern, usually a geometric pattern, then using coloured sand, flour or rice to 'colour' it in.  There are some amazing examples of Rangoli to be found on youtube - check it out!

Rangoli is a great thing to do with kids and here are a couple of ways we did it this year for Diwali...

1. Window Crayons - we used colourful, non-toxic and washable window crayons to decorate our entry way.
2. Flower petal Rangoli - (thank you Mrs K for this idea) we drew chalk patterns on the ground and sprinkled flower petals to make em' perty!
3. Coloured Sand - I bought coloured sand from the art supply store and the kids used it to create their Rangoli on Black card
4. Coloured rice - we used a little food colouring to colour rice in 3 different colours and the kids created a 'group effort Rangoli' using glue and black card.

NOTE: all of the above were messy!!!

Happy Diwali