Around the world people have been celebrating the Hindu festival of Holi this week. Holi marks the beginning of spring and huge parties and processions take place with everyone throwing coloured powders and coloured water at each other in an epic paint fight – hence the popular name, a festival of colours. Everyone wears white...Read More

Today is Bhai Bij – the fifth and final day of the festival of Diwali and it celebrates the special bond between brothers and sisters. Traditionally sisters invite their brothers for a jamvanu (special meal) and blessings and gifts are exchanged. For those who don’t have a brother, like myself, we do a little prayer...Read More

Happy New Year! Or as we say ‘Sal Mubarak’ or ‘Nutan Varshna Abhinandan’ meaning best wishes for the new year. Traditionally we visit family, particularly our elders to pay our respects. We have mithai (my favourites include googra, burfi, biscuits…. Mmm, my mouth is watering just thinking about it!) and nastho (delicious savoury snacks such...Read More

Today is the day of Diwali so happy Diwali everybody!! It is a day of happiness and celebration and lots and lots of food. Today celebrates the return of Rama and Sita to Ayodhya after defeating the ten-headed demon and you can read the full story of Diwali here. Traditionally, we have a big family...Read More

Today is Kali Chaudas and I’ve always thought of it a bit like an Indian version of Halloween. We light up the divos to ward off evil and as a reminder that good always triumphs over evil in the same way that light always triumphs over darkness. There’s a lot of superstitions that people follow...Read More

Diwali, known as the festival of lights, is one of the biggest festivals in the Hindu calendar. It’s a happy time of family, fun and feasts and I absolutely love it. Our festival lasts five days and celebrates the story of Rama and Sita which you can read here. Today is the first day of...Read More

With Diwali just around the corner, I wanted to share with you the story of Diwali, as told to me by my Nanima. The story is written in the Ramayana and is about Rama, the reincarnation of Lord Vishnu, and his wife Sita, the reincarnation of the goddess Lakshmi. Rama grew up in Ayodhya as...Read More

Today I wanted to tell you all about Navratri. It is my favourite Hindu festival and I’ve been dancing away for the past few nights. It’s celebrated in autumn for 9 nights with traditional folk dancing called Garba as a big part of the Gujarati celebrations. We do a special prathna (prayer) each evening called...Read More