Four exciting festivals - wow!

Now, when October is nearing to an end and November and December are looming upon us, with dark days, dark(er) nights, cold and bad weather with quite a gloomy and dull climate... four exciting festivals are coming up! This is the beginning of the festive season! Forget about the bad weather... think of the great festivities! For starters we had UN day on the 24th and now comes the Hindu/Sikh/Jain festival of light, Diwali or Deepavali, followed by a (hopefully) spooky Hallowe'en, which marks the very beginning of Christmas, Yuletide - it's wonderful!

So, here are the details on the three periods of festivities:

1. UN Day - Celebrating the birthday of the United Nations; created in 1945 as a big worldwide union to prevent war and poverty. The festival is celebrated in many parts of the world as a day to celebrate internationality and nations!


2. Diwali/Deepavali (দীপাবলী/दीपावली/தீபாவளி) - one of the biggest Indian festivals - as big as Christmas in the west - the Festival of Lights. The festival is based on a story celebrating light over darkness and the victory of good over evil. The story is about the return of Lord Rama with his wife Sita and his brother Lakshmana to Ayodhya after 14 years in exile and a war in which he killed the demon king Ravana. The people of Ayodhya lit oil lamps to light their path in the darkness. This is why many Hindu homes are thoroughly cleaned and oil lamps are lit. It is also believed that the goddess Laxmi will come and bless their homes. In some parts of the world such as the UK and Singapore this festival is not strictly celebrated by Hindus, but non-religiously appreciated by those of other religions, similar to Christmas. Celebrations include having firework nights, putting up festive lights, decorating the house with flowers and sharing sweets.


3. Hallowe'en - is the spookiest festival of the year, passed down from ancient traditions to today's scary carved Jack-o-lanterns (pumpkins), reading scary stories and watching horror films, lighting bonfires and going trick-or-treating! Originally an Irish festival, with activities such as apple-bobbing, Hallowe'en is really scary and exciting now!

I think that Christmas will get its own post later. In the mean time, HAVE FUN!!!

Goodness Gracious Me - the world's best comedy!

Goodness Gracious Me has to be the best comedy ever! Based on British Asian culture, four famous actors: Sanjeev Bhaskar, Nina Wadia, Kulvinder Ghir and Meera Syal act as British Asians in three whole series of nineteen-nineties comedy! You probably have to have some sort of South Asian connection or knowledge to understand the comedy, but if you do, you can watch it for hours on end. Filled with parodies and exaggerated situations, ranging from the man who calls everything overly English Indians to the Guru Maharishi Yogi - who knows nothing whatsoever about Hinduism.

There are many wonderful sketches which are extremely funny - and lots of great plots. Recently, a sketch named "Going out for an English" - in which four friends go out to an English restaurant in India, much like many British people go out for an Indian, and end up ordering extraordinarily bland food and twenty-four plates of chips was voted the 6th greatest comedy sketch by Britain's Channel 4. It's actually dreadfully hilarious for anyone, so I highly recommend you to watch the following clips, and then have a look at the episodes (almost all of them) on YouTube! It's fantastic!