A St. Charles family hosts Diwali celebrations to connect Indian Americans with home

(from St. Louis Public Radio)

On a breezy Saturday afternoon, about 100 people adorned in brightly printed silk sarees and kurtas while draped in dazzling jewels gathered in the backyard of a St. Charles family home to celebrate Diwali - the Hindu festival of lights.

Aarti Sharma and Sunil Parwal have been hosting the Indian holiday celebration for over a decade.

"My father used to host these in India, so we would have almost 80 to 90 people in India in our house every Diwali," Sharma said.

Now, she is keeping her family tradition alive in the region. The couple have been in the St. Louis area for nearly 25 years and can recall how lonely it was during the Diwali season in the early 2000s before many people from India began to immigrate to the area. Now, Indian Americans are the fastest-growing immigrant group in the region. The couple wanted to bring a slice of the cultural tradition to immigrants to help them remember home.

"There are some people who are new to the city, and it just helps them find new people who they may not have met otherwise," Sharma said.

Every Diwali season people from the Indian diaspora typically celebrate the occasion with new sarees and kurtas, which are custom made in India or by a local Indian designer. Families enjoy cultural foods and sweets, dancing and singing. The one thing missing from the Diwali celebration in St. Louis is the constant flow of fireworks.

"When I was a kid, all the kids would get together and would do fireworks out on the street, and just out there till late at night, this time of the year the weather is very good back in India," Parwal said.

Diwali can be celebrated over a span of five days to weeks, depending on the family. This year it is observed from Oct. 31 through Nov. 1. Diwali derives from the Sanskrit word "Deepavali" - the row of lights. Some families place lights outside their homes during the holiday season to symbolize using the light to drive out the darkness and to celebrate good over evil. Many use the joyous occasion to reset and bring in a prosperous new year.

Throughout the afternoon, people engage in fun conversations about family and their traditional wear. Groups of women danced in circles as the DJ spun Bollywood hits and others lined up to grab plates of pakora, Thai chicken, raita, biryani and chole. Diwali celebrations are not complete without sweets. Guests hovered over homemade delectable jalebis, naans, baklava squares, fig and nut rolls and fried ladoo balls all afternoon.

When Abha Bhaskar moved to St. Louis from New Delhi for college 25 years ago, she missed her family dearly, but now she has found community. She said coming to Diwali gatherings with people from her home state and country helped her become more open-minded about living so far away from family.

"This keeps us going, so this is family now, and this is 25 years longer than when I was at home, so celebrating with my new family is what matters," Bhaskar said. "We don't feel like we're in a different place. This is home and this is family."

Those who celebrate Diwali look forward to giving and receiving memorable gifts, as people do with other holiday celebrations. For Ameesh Dara, that was video cassettes of the story of Ramayan, a Hindu scripture, from his grandmother. He said it was significant because it brought back precious childhood memories of watching the stories as a child.

Dara looks forward to attending Diwali events every year. He has attended the St. Charles backyard celebration for the past four years because it is one of the bigger celebrations outside of temple and hotel festivals. He said he enjoys meeting new people from other parts of India at the celebration because it allows him to share cultural similarities and learn about other subcultures.

"We actually realize how much smaller the world is, because we start running into people that we have connections with even in India, Pakistan and these countries where we have family that are around the country that we don't know about," Dara said. "We learn about them because we share, share ancestors, and so that's something we can do here."

Amey Parwal has introduced his high school friends from different backgrounds to Diwali through his parents' yearly celebrations. He invites them to try different Indian foods, listen to new South Asian rappers and singers and learn other aspects of his culture.

Bringing people of all races together is what St. Louis is about and having Diwali celebrations is a part of the city's fabric, he said.

"In St Louis especially, you get to go to Latin festivals, Native American festivals and do Mardi Gras," Amey said. "St. Louis itself does a good job connecting everybody into one big community."

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