One major holiday that I recently celebrated as a Hindu is Diwali. Diwali means the festival of lights. According to our mythology there were three wives to a king and they all had two babies, one of them was God himself. His name was Ram. He was the oldest and soon to become king. His step mother sent him to exile in the forest for fourteen years so he will not be king. He leaves with his brother and his wife to go to the forest. Sita (Ram's wife) sees a golden deer and tells Ram to go and catch it for her. He runs out to catch it. The deer was actually a demon who faked cried Ram’s voice so that Sita could hear it. Sita gets worried and tells Ram’s brother that he should go to check if Ram was safe. He eventually goes to seek for his brother Ram but leaves a circle that Sita was not allowed to cross for her security. Suddenly, a sage comes begging for food. Sita decided to give the sage food and asks the priest to come forward. The priest gets a shock because of the security circle. Sita comes out to give him food but gets captured by this sage who was a disguised demon. (In my language we call demons Rakshases). Then Ram has a war with Ravan, the demon. In the end Ram triumphed. The people in Ayodhaya (his palace) wait for the God Ram’s arrival. Diwali symbolizes the homecoming of Ram to his kingdom and victory of good over evil. It also is the beginning of a New Year.

My family celebrates Diwali by lighting little oil lamps. These lamps are called dias. Now a lot of people use candles, and colored lights to color their homes inside and outside. We also eat many sweets, such as, gulab jaman, ladoo, barfi, and many more. We have a family get together and cook our dinner. Then we do our prayers and thank god for all the wonderful things that happened to us in the previous years. In addition we ask for forgiveness for all the bad things we've done in life and for a healthy prosperous future. Finally we exchange gifts, children get clothing and toys as a present. Friends exchange sweets and other gifts. Over all Diwali is an enjoyable holiday.