By Hadra Ahmed, IANS,
Addis Ababa : The famous saying of Diwali “You are invited to the festival of this world and your life is blessed” was really printed on the faces of the 500-odd members of the Indian community gathered in this Ethiopian capital to celebrate the festival of lights.
Women dressed in their finest saris and men in their sherwanis, lungis, kurtas and suits filled the air with the flavour of joy and a hope of a prosperous New Year and everything Diwali entails. Children dressed in the traditional clothes played with the friends they met after a long time.
“We were planning to bring 1,000 and more people but the place was not enough to accommodate that many people,” Nainesh Doshi, the outgoing president of the executive committee for the Indian Community in Ethiopia, told IANS.
“This holiday signifies the might of light over darkness, the might of good over bad, the might of love over the other negative elements, and we are here gathered with that in our hearts,” Doshi said.
Diwali has been celebrated in Ethiopia at various places and in various ways for as long as the Indian community has been present in the country. This year the committee managed to take the community members to Bollywood movie “Boss”, released just two weeks ago in India, and followed it up with Diwali festivity at the Sheraton Addis Hotel and dinner at the Sangham Restaurant, one of the oldest Indian restaurants in town.
The night of the festival started with the lighting of the auspicious “diya” (lamp) by Rupa Bishoni, wife of Indian Ambassador Bhagwant Singh Bishnoi, and the festivities continued till midnight with dinner, dances as well as door and raffle prizes.
Saturday evening’s Diwali festival marked the unity of the community.
“We have been celebrating Diwali on our own at our houses just with family members, but here, now we are together and this feels home,” Amrita Kothari, member of the Indian Women Association, told IANS.
“We are a bigger community in Singapore and we just get together and do our thing, and we go to our normal life. And here though we are small, for the second time I have witnessed what I have missed in India all my life”, she said nostalgically.
According to Harsh Kothari, secretary of the executive committee, “We are in Ethiopia. It’s home for us. This is where we live, although we have roots and our culture in India, yet this is home. So we have to find a way to connect the roots to the reality.”
For an outsider looking at a ballroom full of Indians dancing and singing the latest and the oldest songs, the night looked like one straight out of Bollywood movies.
“I came here because I want to celebrate a holiday that means so much to my friends,” says Helen Hallelujah, an Ethiopian. “See, we grew up together, we celebrated our holidays with them, and though we have different faces, we are the same, and we have so much in common.”
Sharing this sentiment, Kothari said, “We are the fourth generation of our family. Our fathers and forefathers have been here doing everything with their Ethiopian neighbours and friends.”
Over 2,000 Indians live in Ethiopia, engaged in different professions, businesses, and conducting investments and forming the Indian community in the country.
(Hadra Ahmed can be reached at [email protected])