{"id":110661,"date":"2017-10-27T12:10:30","date_gmt":"2017-10-27T16:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=110661"},"modified":"2021-02-09T17:26:16","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T22:26:16","slug":"bates-at-night-students-celebrate-diwali-hindu-festival-of-lights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2017\/10\/27\/bates-at-night-students-celebrate-diwali-hindu-festival-of-lights\/","title":{"rendered":"ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ at Night: Diwali comes to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ with dancing, dinner, and sparklers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inside the Muskie Garden around 7 o\u2019clock Monday\u00a0night, one could hear the sounds of crunching leaves and a match taking flame.<\/p>\n

A smell filled the air, but it wasn\u2019t the classic New England autumnal smell of burning leaves \u2014 it was aluminum and magnesium from blazing sparklers.<\/p>\n

The festival night of Diwali, the major Hindu celebration of light, had begun on campus.\u00a0With the official holiday on Oct. 19, when ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ was on break, the Multifaith Chaplaincy presented the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Diwali celebration on Monday\u00a0as students returned.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou associate a certain smell that comes from sparklers,\u201d says Prarthana Mocherla \u201921 of Old Tappan, N.J. \u201cIt reminds me of my childhood and my home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBack home, my brothers and sister all fight over who gets to light the first firecracker,\u201d says Meha Jhajharia \u201819 of Kolkata, India.<\/p>\n

About 50 celebrators, mostly students, gathered first at the Benjamin Mays Center for Rangoli chalk decorating and dinner, then walked to the Muskie Garden for sparklers.<\/p>\n\t\n\t

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Armaan Mecca '21 looks toward a sparkler he has lit. (Theophil Syslo\/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Sukanya Shukla '20 of Gwalior, India, and Fahim Sakil Khan '20 of Dhaka, Bangladesh, embrace inside the Benjamin Mays Center. (Theophil Syslo\/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Verma Muskan \u201921 and Sukanya Shukla \u201920 break out in dance while waiting in line for dinner at the Mays Center. (Theophil Syslo\/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Verma Muskan \u201921 dances with other students in the Mays Center after the Diwali dinner. (Theophil Syslo\/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Inside the Muskie Garden, Jhansi Kolli \u201921 of Murfreesboro, Tenn.; Armaan Mecca \u201921 of Chennai, India; and Prarthana Mocherla \u201921 of Old Tappan, N.J., light sparklers to celebrate Diwali. (Theophil Syslo\/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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As with similar faith traditions that celebrate light at the end of the year, Diwali is a happy time, symbolizing the victory of light over darkness and the triumph of things good over bad.<\/p>\n

For Armaan Mecca \u201921 of Chennai, India, Diwali is about \u201ccoming together to have fun, and spending time getting to know people.\u201d<\/p>\n

His first ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Diwali was \u201cso special because I didn\u2019t think I\u2019d experience something like this outside India.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For first-year Armaan Mecca of Chennai, India, his first ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Diwali was \u201cso special because I didn\u2019t think I\u2019d experience something like this outside India.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1016,"featured_media":110667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"bates_author_byline_override":"","_estimated-read-time":"","_post-template":"\/usr\/local\/webserver\/webpve\/htdocs\/new-www.bates.edu\/wp-content\/themes\/b\/news\/single-big-header-image.php","_header-color":"#0112ba","_photo-credit":"","_header-effect":"","override_related_with_tag":"","_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[4,133,11012],"tags":[11217,1602],"class_list":["post-110661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","category-creativity","category-student-life","tag-bates-at-night","tag-benjamin-mays-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1016"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110661"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110788,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110661\/revisions\/110788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}