Diwali - Festival of Lights

Last Saturday, the 18th of October, I attended an Indian festival known as "Diwali." On the back of the program it says:

"Diwali is a major Indian festival, celebrated on the first day of the lunar Kartika month of Hindu calendar, which comes in the month of October or November.
It is celebrated as the "Festival of Lights," where the lights or lamps signify victory of good over evil and uplifting of spiritual darkness.
In many parts of India, this celebration is the homecoming of King Rama *[who I found out is the 6th incarnation of the god Vishnu]* of Ayodhya after a 14-year exile in the forest. The people of Ayodhya, the capital of his kingdom, welcomed Rama by lighting rows (avali) of lamps (deepa), thus its name, "Deepawali", or simply shortened as Diwali. Southern India marks it as the day Lord Krishna defeated the demon Narakasura.
Diwali marks the end of the harvest season in most of India. Farmers are thankful for the plentiful bounty of the year gone by, and pray for a good harvest for the year to come.
The diety of Lakshmi symbolizes wealth and prosperity, and her blessings are invoked for a good year ahead. Goddess Lakshmi is therefore thanked on this day and everyone prays for a good year ahead."

I went to Diwali for my Intercultural Communication class that I am taking this semester. *[It is my favorite class!]* In class we had an "Interaction Report" assignment where we interact with someone from another culture. I have a friend named Harsh Dubal (pronounced Hersh, as in Hershey) who helped me with this assignment.

So, the requirements for this assignment were:
First- participate in a ritual of the other person's culture (i.e. festival, funeral, wedding, etc.)
Second- participate in a culturally relevant skill (i.e. craft, how to cook, learning an art, etc.)
Third- interview your partner to gain insight into his/her culture
Finally- we had to write a 3-5 page paper on our interaction.
*[If anyone is interested in reading the paper just let me know.]*

Obviously, for the first, I went to Diwali. For the second, Harsh taught me an Indian song on the guitar, and third...I interviewed him. *[This is how I found out that King Rama is the 6th incarnation of the god Vishnu]*

I wanted to share some pictures that I took at Diwali, because it was such a cool experience! *[I was on the 5th row of tables, so I didn't get the BEST pictures...]*