Diwali in Delhi🪔

When the City lights up

It starts weeks in advance. At first, there are just a few scattered advertisements for jewellery and festive clothing. And then, by early October, you get the feeling that the whole of Delhi has turned into one gigantic shopping invitation. Even Ferrero Rocher joins in, using the Festival of Lights to promote its golden chocolate treats.

There’s excitement in the air. A little like the Advent season back home in Germany. And the hustle and bustle is much the same, too. After all, everyone wants to make their loved ones happy with gifts.

And so the whole of Delhi is out and about, and the streets are bursting at the seams. Getting from A to B takes forever.

Everyone exchanges gift boxes. We received our very first one from our landlords during Diwali. I was genuinely touched and felt rather bad because I didn’t have a gift box to give them in return.

These beautifully wrapped boxes, filled with sweets and nuts, are so elaborately decorated that you almost don’t want to open them.

So I simply admired ours. And when I finally opened it four weeks later, the sweets had grown long hair, which was a fairly clear indication that they were no longer edible.

That doesn’t happen to me anymore.

These days, I open the boxes straight away, because inside are all sorts of little, sticky-sweet delicacies. You never quite know what’s in them, but somehow they all seem to taste of cardamom and ghee.

After just one sweet, I already feel as though I’m heading straight for a sugar shock and pushing my body’s insulin production to its limits. That’s why it’s always best to open these boxes with several people around. That way, at least the insulin burden gets shared out.

And just as the sweets put my insulin production to the test, the month of Diwali puts our budget to the test.

Diwali is an expensive month. Even for us – and we don’t even have to buy presents for all our loved ones.

Many employees receive a Diwali bonus. And although salaries in Delhi are modest compared with those in Germany, the extra money makes a noticeable difference. Business is booming, cash registers are ringing, and sales are enormous – just like Christmas back home.

And then, alongside all those shopping invitations, the city begins to transform.

Everywhere you go, you hear it: “Happy Diwali!”

From every shop, from every security guard – the entire city seems to be exchanging cheerful greetings.

And then there are the lights.

Entire building facades suddenly light up, as though someone has wrapped the whole of Delhi in fairy lights. Colourful, blinking, flickering strings of lights illuminate entire streets.

It’s overwhelming. It’s beautiful.

Strings of lights hanging above a street in Delhi during Diwali

Front doors are left open. Literally open.

So that good fortune can come inside, a friend explains to me. And just to make absolutely sure it finds its way, little colourful footprints – Lakshmi Charan – are placed on the floor to guide it in.

I love this tradition. The idea of showing good fortune the way, just to make sure it doesn’t forget about you.

The celebrations include Chhoti Diwali, or Little Diwali, followed by the main Diwali festival. Around this time, colourful rangoli designs begin appearing at the entrances to homes.

In our stairwell, the girls from our neighbours’ family carefully create beautiful pictures out of coloured sand – temporary works of art right there on the staircase floor.

Flowers, geometric patterns, sometimes even a peacock.

I stand there looking at them and think: I really must try that myself next year.

Rangoli - colourful sand and flowers

In Delhi, a city that never stands still, the shops actually close for half a day on Diwali.

Half a day!

Families come together, people eat, celebrate, and then, as darkness falls, the fireworks begin.

And what fireworks!

It’s like New Year’s Eve and Christmas rolled into one.

The sky explodes with colour, the air smells of smoke and sulphur, and somewhere in the middle of it all lies the meaning of the festival: the victory of light over darkness, of good over evil.

I stand on our rooftop terrace, looking out over the sparkling city below, listening to the bangs and hisses of fireworks, and think:

Maybe we all need a festival like this sometimes.

One that simply says: We celebrate. We give. We bring light into the darkness. We believe that good will prevail.

And yes, we make an awful lot of noise while doing it – at least for this one night.

And good fortune?

It’s probably sitting somewhere in one of those open stairwells, following the colourful little footprints, and perhaps it will even stop by our place.

I’ve certainly left the door open for it.