Happy Deepavali

Hindus around the world will be celebrating Diwali or commonly-known here as Deepavali tomorrow, Nov 5. Here's wishing you

As Malaysia is a multi-ethnic society, Deepavali is a public holiday here. South Asians, or rather Indians, make up more than 10% of the population. As this will be a longer weekend than usual, many people will take the opportunity to go home to their family for those "out-of-towners". So, where are you headed to?

Happy Deepavali

Tomorrow is a major festival celebrated by the Hindus as they celebrate the "Festival of Lights" where the lights or lamps signify the uplighting of darkness and victory of good over the evil within, according to Wikipedia.

The day also commemorated the homecoming of King Rama of Ayodhya, after a 14-year exile in the forest[1], and thus the people of Ayodhya (the capital of his kingdom) welcomed him back by lighting up rows of lamps (deepa-wali), thus its name, Deepawali, or simply shortened as Diwali.

Though colloquially called Diwali in North India, in South India it is called Deepavali which is also commonly known here in Malaysia. Being a multi-cultural nation, Deepavali is a gazetted public holiday so we do get a day off even though we we do not celebrate this festival. Malaysia is probably the only country in the world with the most number of holidays. In certain states, there are as many as seventeen public holidays a year.

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all Hindus near and far, Happy Deepavali.