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The Festival of Divali
Divali is one of the best known Hindu festivals. It is a New Year festival and takes place in the autumn, around September / October. Like many Hindu festivals, it has different parts to it. It is celebrated in different ways in different parts of the world. As a New Year festival, Divali is about new beginnings.
Many Hindus begin the festival by taking a special bath in perfumed oil. After bathing, they put on new clothes. The house is cleaned from top to bottom. It is then decorated with different-coloured glitter and tinsel. Little clay lamps called divas are lit and placed in the windows and outside the front door.
At Divali, greetings cards are sent to friends and relatives, inviting them to visit. During the festival, Hindus decorate the outside of their homes with rangoli patterns and hang a banner across the top of their front door as a sign of welcome. Rangoli patterns may be geometric or in a form of a fruit, flower, tree or religious Hindu figures. They can be made with coloured rice or with different coloured sands or powders.
At Divali, Hindus may also decorate their hands and feet with mendhi patterns, to make themselves look beautiful. These patterns are painted with a brown dye called henna, which lasts for several days. Mendhi patterns are also used at Hindu weddings.
During the festival of Divali the sharing of food is especially important. When people go and visit family and friends they take a tray of sweets with them. Sometimes, when Hindus return home, they have more sweets on the tray than they had at the start of their visits.
In several British towns and cities with large Hindu communities, streets are lit up during Divali. There are fire work displays, fun fairs and other special events.
