Big, bright festival of lights on its way
A new festival in Invercargill hopes to bring the home away from home to the Indian community.
Indian Community in Southland president Ranna Joshi said the Indian population was growing in the region so there was a need to celebrate Southland’s biggest Diwali festival. Diwali is the Hindu festival of lights, which is celebrated every autumn in the northern hemisphere.
A lot of people tended to feel home sick at times of year when festivals and traditional celebrations would take place, and some people moved to other cities in New Zealand where they would have the chance to celebrate, Joshi said.
‘‘They complain about no festivals in Invercargill, and from that they don’t want to stay here. We have all these talented people that live in Invercargill but go north and instead do unwanted jobs. If we utilise the expertise here it’s the biggest step towards that.
‘‘We want to give them a reason to stay here.’’
Joshi has lived in Invercargill for 10 years, but said there had only been smaller or domestic Diwali celebrations.
This would be the first opportunity to welcome people from the wider community together, she said.
There are between 1200 and 1500 Indian people in Southland and growing, especially in the farming sector and Southern Institute of Technology students.
Joshi expects about 3000 people to attend the festival.
The festival will have food, dance, music and other activities which represent all regions of India.
‘‘We’re showing that India is a vast, diverse community. We’re trying to promote and show off different regions, different food, clothing and dance.’’
There would be rangoli competitions, saree draping workshops for women and girls, and turban wrapping workshops for men and boys.
The event will be held on November 10 at ILT Stadium Southland. In an about-face, the Clutha District Council is to hold an extraordinary meeting on Friday because it failed to give a submitter, the South Otago Historical Society, an opportunity to attend a council meeting last Thursday.
The council will reconvene to reconsider the society’s request to retain unused curator’s wages.
At the meeting, the society was ordered to give back $14,353 of unused funds intended for the South Otago Museum curator, who left the position in February.
Society president Kevin Barron, embattled with the council regarding his ousting from the Balclutha War Memorial Hall revamp project in May, accused the council of not only disinterest in the district’s history but bias against him personally in making this decision.
However, the council says there is no disinterest in the museum or ill-will towards Barron.
The Christchurch-based businessman, who is from Balclutha originally, said he did not know the matter was going to be discussed at the meeting, and was not given the chance to attend.
As a result, Stuff put questions to the council around procedures about informing people so that they had the opportunity to speak and to give feedback on issues at meetings.
In the interim, Clutha chief executive Steve Hill had investigated and said the council was unaware the society had not been invited and had been working through the consequences of that on Monday.
Indian Community in Southland president Ranna Joshi, pictured.