#203 Diwali @Dhanbad

Diwali @Dhanbad

Diwali is a festival of light and dispeller of darkness. It also spreads a message to instill within us a source of knowledge by driving out the darkness of ignorance.

For me, Diwali has always been so special. Why so?? Because Diwali brings a lot of surprises for me: starting from gifts, a variety of sweets, decorative diyas, crackers and much more. All the mentioned things are always included in my wish list. Preparation of Diwali starts one week before by cleaning rooms and arranging things in a proper manner. I am always excited about decorating my rooms with a variety of lights and wall hangings. Some are created by me for this special occasion. So, the preparation of Diwali makes me occupied for long.

The celebration of Diwali at Dhanbad was no less than a surprise for me. All were so excited before one week. This could be very easily identified from our faces. Wishing ‘Happy Diwali’ and bringing ‘Diwali’ into discussion very clearly reveal so.  The wait for Diwali was very justified as it would bring a series of holidays with it as a gift for us(as students) who are always in dire need of holidays. We would be busy in making some plans to spend the holidays.

Choti Diwali started with a party being thrown by one of the classmates who was offered a job. It was a lunch being arranged in one of the restaurants of Dhanbad. We as M. Tech 1^st year students gathered there and enjoyed our lunch together. In the evening a ‘Lantern Fest’ named ‘Arise’ was organized by third years in collaboration with Sadda NGO at the upper ground. It was a musical night and a no. of bands from students performed there. I was among the audience, tapping my feet with the songs. It was then followed by DJ night. The crowd was eagerly waiting for this. Songs played there, were quite synchronized enough to make the crowd to groove.

It was the turn of Diwali for which we had been waiting for long to celebrate with our friends. The first phase of the day went with decoration. We had already purchased candles, diyas, and crackers before. In afternoon, my roommate got a speaker and we had an inbuilt dance floor in our room to tap our feet with the most popular Bollywood songs. To get the feeling of real DJ night(but we were doing that in afternoon), we invited some of our wingmates to join us. And it was really fun and exciting. Our show went for about 2 hours with some of the audiences peeping from outside of our room. In the evening, I with some of my wingmates visited a temple for evening prayer. The campus of IIT(ISM) Dhanbad was glittering with candles and Diyas being placed at the fence of hostels and roads. The whole scene was worth watching. We headed towards the lower ground where we saw a no. of students burning different types of crackers. We went back to the hostel and we had a photo session with our friends. Dinner was special enough to make this day more memorable. Lots of dishes were included in menu and decoration at mess was worth watching. Rangoli added much more colours to mess.

The feeling of being home by staying away from home was a wonderful experience indeed.  I thank everyone who made this festival so memorable for me. And yes, it was possible because we were in a new-family by being away from our families and under the same roof sharing a unique bond of friendship and compassion with each other. I wish that this continues forever.

Wishing every reader of this article a Happy Diwali.

Sweta Sarangi

30-10-2016