Select a region
A couple of hundred people came together yesterday for the fourth, and largest yet celebration of Diwali in Guernsey.
Organised by a small team, the event at Cobo Community Centre saw a traditional candle lighting ceremony before a group of young girls started the dancing.
Pictured: Some of the youngest members of the community took to the dance floor first. (Milly Mallender)
With Diwali falling on 12 November this year, the celebrations in Guernsey yesterday gave a taster of what might come elsewhere.
As part of the Guernsey celebrations, a number of women followed the younger girls to the dance floor with an extended performance of traditional dances and moves inspired by Bollywood films before everyone was encouraged to get up and join in.
Pictured: Some of the ladies had spent weeks practising for their dancing display. (Milly Mallender)
Lunch was served after the dancing, courtesy of the Taste of India restaurant at L'eree, and everyone mingled throughout the afternoon.
Raj Singh is one of the four volunteers who organise community events such as these in Guernsey.
He said they have three a year, but the Diwali one is the biggest and this one, being the fourth Diwali event they’ve held was the biggest one yet.
Pictured: As the festival of light, Diwali centres around candles, lanterns and other illuminations. (Milly Mallender)
"This is the best one I think. We have more people joining and more people getting interested to join the celebration every year so that is why we have invited our local media and then this is how it is - very, very good.”
Mr Singh, and his wife and daughter, have lived in Guernsey for five years and he was thrilled to see people of different cultures including some local Guernsey residents in attendance yesterday.
"Most people understand Diwali to be honest as it's being celebrated globally as festival of lights. Since we've got enormous responses from more people willing to join, we will try and create Facebook page next time."
Pictured: The event drew people from different communities across Guernsey. (Milly Mallender)
In explaining what Diwali is, Mr Singh said it has grown into a huge global cultural event over the course of two centuries.
“Initially, maybe 200 years ago, it used to be celebrated by Hindus, but now it is widespread and celebrated by a lot of other communities.
"Here we have friends from India, Mauritius, Israel and we have friends from Sri Lanka.
"We have friends from local too, I think it's a beautiful island and everybody should know that we have different flavours on the island.”
Pictured: The dancing continued throughout the afternoon. (Milly Mallender)
The women put on a dancing show that lasted for nearly 30 minutes with some young girls starting and then numerous women of different ages taking part in a free-flowing show.
Mr Singh said they had been practicing hard for a couple of weeks with a small number of women including his wife, and his friend’s wife helping to co-ordinate the routines.
"They used to practice until maybe 11 or 12 in the night in their houses, taking videos and sharing videos to each other.It’s been very well co-ordinated.”
Pictured: The women's dancing culminated with other women, men, and children joining in from the audience. (Milly Mallender)
Seekshah was the MC introducing the dancing. It was her first time attending and she wanted to volunteer to get involved too.
"What I learned from Raj is that they were doing events but it was very like friends and family but then slowly we started having more people coming in, to this much.
"It's a full diversity as you can see people, people from Europe also there's people from Mauritius, people from South Africa, people from India.
"Diwali is celebrated worldwide nowadays and it's the festival of lights, and it's like, you enjoy it with your family and it's a really big, big event in India. It's like how we have Christmas on this side of the world and the celebration.”
Pictured above and top: All images by Milly Mallender.
Comments
Comments on this story express the views of the commentator only, not Bailiwick Publishing. We are unable to guarantee the accuracy of any of those comments.