Deepawali

Deepawali - the festival of lights :) - one of my favorite festivals :)

Deepawali is celebrated for 3 days - 

Day1 is called Naraka Chaturdashi - the day Krishna killed Narakaasura. Naraka also means hell in kannada, so this day is to remind ourselves to kill the bad things/daemon thoughts and raise above hell condition.

Day 2 is Amavasya - is the Lakshmi Pooje day.

Day 3 is Balipadyami - Bali was Prahlada's grandson. He was a Vishnu bhakta, very generous, but extremely proud and used to trouble the Gods and Goddesses. So Vishnu came to Bali in the form of Vamana - meaning dwarf (one of the avatars of Dashavatar of Vishnu) and requested him to give 3 pieces of land to him. Bali, who was a very generous person, said he will give. Vamana's one step occupied the whole sky, second step whole earth. And since Bali had promised Vamana 3 pieces of land, he offered his head as the 3rd step for Vamana. Vamana placed the 3rd step on Bali's head and pushed him below earth to the patalaloka (below earth land). Since Bali was a  strong devotee, Vishnu said Bali was allowed on earth once every year. And that day is called Balipadyami. Everyone lights lamps and burst crackers this day :)

This year as well we had a GREAT time during Deepawali. We ordered 99 diyas from Fame India / Yashaswini Swavalambana Trust (YST) to give to family and friends. This year, Deepawali was on Nov 13, 14 and 15th. Its always lot of fun during this time. I made the list of people, then ordered different kinds of diyas. And once the diyas were delivered, I was so awed looking at all the lovely diyas! Beautiful colors and various kinds. I keep admiring the diyas every time I look at them :) YST gets the diyas from outside and the differently-abled kids at YST paint them. Please check out their website to know more about the organisation, they are doing a fantastic job:

http://www.fameindia.org

http://www.ystindia.org

We visited most of our friends and relatives and gave diyas. Evenings we lit the diyas, and burst crackers. The diyas looked more beautiful after lighting them. It was first Deepawali for my bro and sil after their wedding. They came home on day1 and we burst crackers together, was fun. Later our whole family went one round in the car to commercial street to see the lights lit. It was bright and colorful everywhere in Bangalore.

Day 2 was similar, meet friends/family, eat, light diyas, burst crackers and eat again :D. Had fun at a get-together at one of our friend's place.

Day 3, we visited my mom's place and had a heavy lunch. In the evening we lit all the diyas, and I felt so happy looking at so many diyas. They looked extremely beautiful in the night :). 

Later in the night we had a fun get together at my cousin's place - bursting crackers, taking pictures and eating.

Overall we had looots of fun during Deepawali :)