A feast for the senses
In the spirit of cleansing the soul and house for the new season, the Diwali festival will give Southlanders a true experience of Indian culture.
The festival will showcase all things Indian with food stalls, music, lights and colours, all while bringing in kapa haka, rock’n’roll dancers and other New Zealand cultures to the festivities.
Indian Community in Southland president Ranna Joshi said New Zealand was a very multi-cultural country, so there was a real need to celebrate with Southland’s first official Diwali festival.
‘‘Invercargill has been quite far behind but the community is growing, we thought it was a good time to start sharing our culture.’’
The organisation is expecting about 2000 people will attend the event, being held at ILT Stadium Southland on Saturday.
Committee director Himani Mishra
Galbraith said across India’s 29 states, different dialects were spoken, different religions were celebrated and everyone came together to celebrate the festival.
‘‘The whole idea is to celebrate the diversity from the regions that we have . . .’’
Galbraith said the feeling of Diwali was a sensory overload with flavours, sounds, colours and smells cleansing the soul.
Sharing these cultural events and traditions with the people in her new home was crucial and teaching people about the culture but keeping a hold of tradition was also important.
‘‘We’ve been integrating for a long time but keeping our identity and traditions is important.’’
While the festival would not host food and culture from every state, Galbraith said they had really tried to showcase as much of the culture as possible.
She hoped New Zealanders would ‘‘become a part of our life as we’ve become a part of Kiwi life’’.
The festival was supported by the ILT foundation, Community Trust South and many others.
Galbraith said it would have only been a dream to her community if it wasn’t for the support from the wider community.
Festival committee member Adrick John said it was the perfect way to share the growing Indian culture in New Zealand, even to help some Kiwi-born Indians learn more about their culture.