Diwali is going to be a little bit different this year for Melbourne-based screenwriter and comedian Vidya Rajan.
For the past few years, living in a different state, away from the majority of her family, her celebrations have been either very small or even passed by relatively unobserved.
So, this year, she's throwing her own, inner-city Diwali celebration — and perhaps even starting a new tradition.
Diwali, which is also called Deepavali, Divali and Deepwali depending on the region, is a five-day festival celebrated globally by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Newar Buddhists, and widely observed in India.
Also known as the festival of lights, the name is derived from the Sanskrit term dipavali, meaning "row of lights". The festival symbolises the victory of light over darkness.
These are her words.
Tracing a family tradition
Growing up, Diwali was a big event for my family and our family friends. It has that spiritual significance of defeating darkness and starting new things.
I grew up in the Middle East in the Indian diaspora there, which is quite large.
It's a very different kind of diasporic experience. It was very secular — everybody lived in apartments and we'd celebrate Diwali, we'd celebrate Christmas, we'd celebrate Eid, with everyone going to each other's houses.
Our family's celebrations in Australia were much quieter than when we lived overseas.
We'd have sparklers and lamps and visit family friends. And a key component of symbolising the "new" is that we're always supposed to get a fresh outfit.
What I really miss is the scale of it, which includes fireworks — they're usually banned here but this has changed in recent years with councils and communities getting special permission.
A lot of my childhood was spent being excited about the newest firework on the market, and wondering how close you could get to them without getting hurt, which is as dangerous as it sounds to be honest. But watching the sky fill up with lights and the joy of that was a key part of those time, and as always, the food.
Starting something new
This year we're starting a new tradition. We're doing a potluck dinner — it's a way to keep that cultural connection alive.
I'm trying to set up a life in Melbourne that feels authentic, so that's what it's about — hope and new traditions.
But more than that it's a sharing of community — like the people coming to this dinner are from different spiritual backgrounds, not everyone comes from a Hindu family.
Much like in my childhood, there is a secular sense of coming together and sharing this festival of hope and more importantly, creating space to be in culture together. At the potluck, I'll be inviting mostly brown friends and found family.
During the COVID lockdowns, my partner and I were stuck in Western Australia, living with my parents, and were able to celebrate Diwali with family.
It was a quiet one due to restrictions but spending that much time at home as an adult after moving out reminds you of the joy and importance of these traditions.
Over the years I've found more South Asian community in Melbourne, which can be hard in the spaces that I'm in like the arts or comedy.
We're all at that stage where we're becoming actual adults, and trying to figure out what the rest of our lives look like in regards to our culture, and how to keep traditions and community alive.
I don't live in the kind of South Asian monoculture that I grew up in overseas and so deliberately finding these little spaces and starting these traditions and inviting people who, maybe like me, don't have immediate family in the state or have come here to study and are maybe missing home in some way, is one way of engaging with culture.
What's on the menu?
It's going to be potluck, because we do not have our parents' ability to cook for 30 people at once ... not that there are 30 people coming for this but that kind of stamina and capacity has not been passed down, and don't worry — I am mildly ashamed.
But everyone is pitching in and the menu is looking pretty great, and that is very much how our parents raised us, so it's not a full fail.
I'll personally make a palak paneer and Idli, a Tamil food — it's delicious — and other friends are making things specific to their region, too.
Sweets are also an essential part of Diwali, you wouldn't go to someone's house without bringing some stuff — like gulab jamun, ladoo, rasmalai. My mum used to start making them two days before Diwali. They're pretty laborious, so those we're definitely just buying.
There's more large, visible celebrations in Australia now than when I was growing up.
I was recently on the Gold Coast and noticed that all of Movie World has been booked out for Diwali by an Indian association — rides, dance, food, and fireworks at that scale? Wild! If that's happening next year, I might have to go.
But in any case, I think it's important to continue smaller gatherings and traditions — it's how we build community, after all.