Fran Meets World | Diwali the Festival of Light

I was drawn to this festival immediately when I read that you have to wear new clothes and dedicate most of the time to shopping and secondly, as it is the festival of light and I love candles. I would be more than happy to be surrounded by candlelight.

Diwali falls between October and November and is a national holiday in many Eastern countries including Nepal, Singapore and India. I have actually been to Singapore but unfortunately not during Diwali. However I will always remember swimming with the dolphins…amazing experience… I swam with a dolphin called Madonna – not a very typical Singaporean name I thought!

Diwali is the most important Hindu festival and celebrates Lakshmi, the Goddess of Prosperity and Wealth. Hindus pray to her to bring them luck and wealth in the year ahead. I think it would be a wonderful experience to be in India for this festival and to come back super rich!

Maybe it will be good to celebrate Diwali in the office although the ‘elf’ and safety will never allow candles lit in the office – we may need to check or we could end up celebrating Bonfire Night instead of Diwali!

I have never been to India but it is high on my list of places to visit. My favourite food is actually Indian and curries. I love the spices used in Indian cooking and I love even more that there is no sign of parsley anywhere – I really think that parsley is unnecessary to the point that I wanted to start a campaign to label all food containing parsley… I hope the Prime Minister is a parsley hater like me and he will get behind this.

I love what Diwali stands for – love, cleansing and prosperity. It’s a shame we don’t have something like this where I come from in Italy (we are hardly a spiritual bunch). The only festivals we have are things like the artichoke or the mushroom ones, but I will not go into that right now!

Happy Diwali