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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: Happy Diwali / Deepavali !

Open Thread: Happy Diwali / Deepavali !

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MOAR LIGHTS, more fireworks, more sugar — perfect holiday. Please forgive me if I’m jumping the starters’ pistol here…

(CNN) — Fireworks boom, bulbs flash, and flames flicker as tens of millions of people across the globe celebrate the beginning of the Festival of Lights.

Diwali — from the word Deepavali, meaning “row of lights” — is observed by Hindu, Sikh and Jain communities, who celebrate for five days in autumn to mark the victory of light over darkness.

This year, the festival begins on November 3, with splashes of color, lighting displays and blaring parties set to greet Diwali’s arrival.

Celebrated for centuries across much of the Indian subcontinent, Diwali is now exploding: spreading the promise of wealth, knowledge and happiness to new communities across the world…

Fireworks are said to drive away evil spirits and, at this time of year, many Hindus will also clean the house and light small oil-burning lanterns to attract Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth into the home.

But the celebration is anticipated with excitement by many across India — as well as neighboring Sri Lanka and Nepal — regardless of religious beliefs…

diwali in boston facebook page

From the ‘Dewali in Boston‘ Facebook page
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Reader Interactions

59Comments

  5. 5.

    raven

    @NotMax: It’s 54 right now. I sit outside with the pups year round. I wear my Korea gear when it gets really frigid, people think I’m nuts but I enjoy it. We walk by a Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins when we walk there during the week.

  7. 7.

    NotMax

    @raven

    Had one Dunkin Donuts here when I arrived 30 years ago, but it went bye-bye shortly after that.

    Baskin-Robbins closed up, too, but was still for sale (after the storefront closed) in a corner of an office supply wholesaler (dunno if still there).

    Some others who tried here and gave up: JC Penney, Sizzler, Bank of America, and Red Lobster, (who idiotically opened the largest eatery in the whole chain at that time in Lahaina, with seating for 800). KFC is down to one location, expect that to disappear too.

  9. 9.

    raven

    @NotMax: And there was that little eatery at the bottom of the road down from the volcano, not a chain but it seemed like it was rough going for businesses. It’s funny, Die Hard made a big deal of getting a new boat, had a break in cruise and posted a buunch of pictures, There has been no action on their website or FB page since August.

  10. 10.

    geg6

    @raven:

    Speak to the hand. Some of us have dogs that MUST EAT at 5:30am no matter what day of the freakin’ week it is. And who promptly go back to bed, leaving me here, unable to go back to sleep once I’m up. Damn dogs.

  11. 11.

    raven

    @geg6: Well, I wake mine up!. They have been kicked out of the bed since the princess started having back problems a year ago but, as soon as I get up, the Bohdi takes my spot! Lately I’ve been waking up @ 4:30 and that doesn’t bode well for tomorrow when the time changes!

  12. 12.

    NotMax

    @raven

    Thank you, thank you, for mentioning the time change. As it doesn’t change here, was unaware of the date. Have to remember the new time difference now for when I have to call the mainland.

    Belated Oktoberfest-themed dinner at our weekly gathering Sat. night. Stoked.

  14. 14.

    Mustang Bobby

    Charlie Crist is running for governor of Florida as a Democrat this time. Geewhatasurprise.

    Granted, he’d be a better governor than Rick Scott, but then again, so would Teddy the Wonder Lizard (although I’m not quite sure Rick Scott isn’t Teddy the Wonder Lizard).

  15. 15.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: Slept to 5:44 for the first time in about 7 years. Still woke up at 3:09 but managed to fall back to sleep. Don’t know how that happened.

    Watched “Life of Pi” last night. Great flick. Even made me a little jealous of the God-botherers.

  16. 16.

    Botsplainer

    Apparently, yesterday there were two local radio stations playing Christmas music.

    I find myself becoming deeply depressed over the coming arrival of that most shitty time of year.

  19. 19.

    Soonergrunt

    So I started smoking again. Not good, and I’ll speak to the doctor about it at my annual VA physical next week. But one of the salutary effects was that I was just out on my back porch in the pre-dawn twilight with the air very still and I could hear the OU band practicing for today’s game, clear as a bell. I knew it was them because they played the OU fight song. They’re down in Norman, 20 miles away.

  21. 21.

    Mike E

    @OzarkHillbilly: I enjoyed that as well, the blu ray experience was impressive. A friend lent me the book years ago which was a snappy read.

    Just caught Mud last night, liked it also. those kids carry that movie.

  23. 23.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: Oh God, I thought everything was awesome! The attack of the flying fish was absolutely hilarious. Ang Lee is fast becoming a favorite. I can’t think of anything he has done that didn’t measure up.

  25. 25.

    Soonergrunt

    @Elizabelle: She’s had a rough week. She didn’t go to school at all this week, being too ill. My sister is a teacher at her high school and has been bringing her assignments and tutoring her. We’re hoping that this flare up will be over soon and she can go back to school, but we’re also getting our ducks in a row to set her up with the state’s internet school, for which my sister also teaches.

  26. 26.

    Elizabelle

    Coffeeing up before going out canvassing this weekend for Terry McAuliffe. Virginia election’s Tuesday.

    SO: what do you do if you are Dave Albo, a moderate Republican state delegate, with a district full of educated women?

    You send them a mailer featuring your grandmother, Hettie Albo, born in 1900, a suffragette and college graduate.

    You write that “If she was alive today, I bet she would be very upset with politicians running solely on social issues and ‘gender politics’.” You talk about Hettie being concerned about “quality K-12 schools, and getting her kids into college.”

    Dave is begging women who are voting enthusiastically against Cuccinelli to give him a vote too.

    (And yes, Dave Albo did make the Rachel Maddow show with his schtick about transvaginal whatever and the wife deciding to go to bed early, by herself. That said, he is not one of the cultural warrior types.)

    PS: so much uproar about Cuccinelli ticket and women’s issues that their disregard for public education never got much attention. Attorney General candidate Mark Obenshain gets a zero rating from the Virginia Education Association, and 100% from the American Conservatives Union.

  28. 28.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Soonergrunt:

    So I started smoking again. Not good,

    I smoked for 36 years. Must have quit dozens of times. For my final year of smoking I had cut down to 4 cigarettes a day…. And could not let those last 4 go. For a year I had to have them at least. Finally succeeded 3 years ago.

    What got me thru it? Chantrix. If not for that drug I never would have made it. Not cheap. But the dreams alone are worth the price of admission. Everynight is a 3D-Blue Ray techni-colour stereophonic trip thru the Looking Glass. “Think Life of Pi”, “Avatar”, and “Alice in Wonderland” times 3. I swear to Dog, it is better than acid. You will be excited about going to sleep.

    What keeps me off them is the certain sure knowledge that if I hadn’t quit when I did, I would quite probably be dead by now. That and the fact that I am 1 cigarette away from a 2 pack a day habit.

    Good luck. Quitting was by far the hardest thing I have ever done, largely because in my mind, I have to quit again every day.

    And if the Chantrix doesn’t work for you? You’ll “always have Paris.”

  29. 29.

    Elizabelle

    @Soonergrunt:

    Sorry to hear she’s not been feeling well.

    Silver lining: is it possible she could work more quickly and progress more with the internet school and assistance from your sister?

    It’s interesting how many people who did really well later in the creative field had school disruption (or mostly absence) in their pasts. Which is not to say they remained uneducated. Just differently educated.

  30. 30.

    Soonergrunt

    @MikeJ: I was smoking almost two packs a day when I quit using Chantix. I lasted about three years, and started again with a bummed one here and there for a couple of days, and then bought cigarettes on the way home from work. I’m smoking about a half a pack a day right now.

  31. 31.

    Elizabelle

    Sooner: maybe you’re smoking because you’re anxious about your daughter and other issues?

    I hope the Chantix will work for you again.

  32. 32.

    Soonergrunt

    @OzarkHillbilly: “Not cheap. But the dreams alone are worth the price of admission. Everynight is a 3D-Blue Ray techni-colour stereophonic trip thru the Looking Glass.”
    I used Chantix to quit the first time around. It was like dreaming in Blu-Ray, just like you said. But yeah, it was expensive. The insurance I had at the time didn’t cover Chantix or nicotine patches or anything to help stop smoking, which is fucking ridiculous when you figure just how much they have to spend on cancer treatment. I believe Chantix is part of the VA’s formulary, so I should be able to get it either free or at a substantial discount.

  34. 34.

    Amir Khalid

    Interesting: two of the three videos you picked are from Malaysia. ABN Access is an ISP /Internet TV provider here, and Petronas (owner of the famous Twin Towers) is of course the national oil company. Petronas has a long history of turning out TV spots and short films that about characteristically Malaysian things like major religious holidays and Merdeka (independence) day and such, our equivalent of mom and apple pie.

  35. 35.

    Betty Cracker

    Good morning from the sunny Keys. I’m down here for a house party weekend with old chums. There is to be a champagne bar and stone crab claw feast later. It doesn’t suck.

  36. 36.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Soonergrunt:

    and started again with a bummed one here and there for a couple of days, and then bought cigarettes on the way home from work.

    Oh Dog, how many times did I go thru that song and dance? Mind you, I never lasted more than a few weeks.

  40. 40.

    gene108

    @Amir Khalid:

    Explains why the subtitle under the “Our Deepavali” video, by Petronas, was in Tamil but none of the scenery on the road trip looked like Tamil Nadu. It was shot in Malaysia!

  41. 41.

    Betty Cracker

    @JPL: Should be an interesting game — in a “which stains grout worse, mold or grime?” kinda way. Go Gators!

  45. 45.

    Amir Khalid

    @gene108:
    For me, the giveaway is of course the Petronas logo at the start of the video. And yes, that’s what the highways look like around here — when it’s not the rush hour.

  46. 46.

    StringOnAStick

    @Amir Khalid: I had a Malaysian grad student as a patient last week; such a happy, friendly, nice guy! Seems like all my international student patients are really great folks; if I have a problem patient it is a US kid who is scary bright (this is a dental clinic at a tough STEM-centric U) but exhibits ADHA/Asperger’s issues and any physical touch is too stimulating for them, combined with the social inappropriateness issues over it. 99% of the time my job is the best I’ve ever had, so I sure hope they straighten out the funding issues so they don’t have to close the clinic next year…

  47. 47.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    I gotta say I’m way happier about people lighting fireworks in November than in July, out here in the drought-ridden desert.

  48. 48.

    mai naem

    @Soonergrunt: I am seeing people talking about Chantix. I have two friends who started on Chantrix whose blood pressure jumped a lot when they started on it and had to discontinue. They both had existing hypertension before they started on the Chantrix.

    Happy Diwali and Saalmubarak!

  49. 49.

    Amir Khalid

    Since there has been no football open thread around these parts since Randinho went wherever, it falls to me to report that a goalkeeper has scored for only the fifth time on the history of the English Premier League. Asmir Begovic’s 14th-second clearance from the Stoke City penalty area was ignored by Southampton’s defenders, and flew over the goalkeeper’s head and in. Even wind-assisted flukes count as goals.

  53. 53.

    Pogonip

    I think people from India are born knowing how to throw a good party. At all the many, many international festivals I’ve been to, the India booth was always the most fun. I wish them all a happy Diwali! And the Nepalese, etc, too.

    I just KNEW someone was going to crack the “inside of a dog…” joke before I got a chance to. Harrumph.

  55. 55.

    Jay

    Since Indian culture’s being celebrated by Balloon Juice’s Bostonian (or at least Boston – sympathetic) blogger, can I put in a word for the fiction of Jhumpa Lahiri? It zooms in really sharply on India and America, particularly New England.

  57. 57.

    YellowJournalism

    @Jay: The Namesake is one of my favorite books. I also read The Interpreter of Maladies in college.

    Is her new one out yet?

  58. 58.

    Jay

    @YellowJournalism:

    Lahiri’s new novel is, in fact, out, and it’s called The Lowland.

    Also, before The Lowland, Lahiri wrote a 2nd collection of short stories (a collection longer than Interpreter of Maladies) called Unaccustomed Earth. I read her two short story collections consecutively, in the two weeks after the attack on Boston. Against that backdrop, I found Unaccustomed Earth & Interpreter of Maladies quite wholesome and (yeah, this next word is corny, I know) comforting.

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