Southland’s Diwali celebrations this Saturday is expected to attract thousands of people after a 2-year hiatus.

Hosted by the Indian Community Southland Inc, the festival at ILT Stadium Southland is gearing  up to be the biggest in the event’s five year history.

Chair Vinay Sood said the festival was about bringing the entire community together – not just the Southland Indian population, but everybody from all nationalities.

“This is an invitation to the Southland community to come and join this celebration,” he said.

There were currently between 2000 and 3000 Indian nationals living in the South, and this had grown in recent years, with many migrating from the North Island.

The Diwali festival in India is traditionally held on a moonless night called ‘Amavasya,’ celebrating the country’s diverse language and religion.

Vinay said you could drive 2.5hrs in any direction in India and find a completely different dialect and culture, but this festival is still one of the few things that bind the whole country together.

This year’s Indian celebration started on October 22 and will continue through until October 26, but here in Southland they chose to have it on the weekend.

Known as the festival of light triumphing over darkness, people have different reasons to celebrate this victory of good vs evil, he said.

Largely, it was about bringing prosperity to your family, leading up to the Christmas period.

This year’s festival would include multiple performances and dances, 14 food stalls and six or seven non-food stalls, which would include, henna, turban and saris.

Auckland-based dance group Khottey Sikkey, that specialises in Bollywood Dance, would be performing at the festival for the first time.

There would also be folk, semi-classical and other fusion dance, and an interactive workshop would  be conducted for the local communities to understand Indian culture and vibrancy better.

These activity corners will include:

  1. Saree draping for the women – to learn how to wear and carry this exotic attire.
  2. Turban draping for the men – to have a feeling of being the ‘Prince’ when you will drape this turban on your head
  3. Photo booth – Get your photos in front of the Indian backdrop.  The icing on the cake will be the Bollywood DJ from 5PM.
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