Put On Your Sari

It’s time to celebrate Diwali.

Much to my family’s chagrin, I’m a great example of the Americanization of immigrant experiences, meaning that I don’t really know the history behind a lot of the religious and cultural experiences that my family participates in. My parents might see this a failure on their part in their passing on a great part of their culture and religion, but really the blame lies with TV.

What I’m saying is that television had a huge hand in raising me, through no fault of my parents. I just really liked watching TV. Due to poor representation of the Indian diaspora on TV, I learned a lot of nothing about brown people’s experiences.

That’s not entirely true.

Things I know about Diwali:

• We eat a lot of food.
• We light a lot of diyas (aka small clay pots with a wick in it).
• That may be cleansing? Spiritually?
• There’s a lot of food.
• If you whine enough, your family will bring you food to college, apartment or wherever within a 2 hour drive time. (This may be exclusive to my parents.)
• There is sharing of food with extended family.

Thankfully for every person part of the Indian diaspora, there is the single greatest episode of The Office ever which may be a slight (definite) exaggeration.

Things I learned about Diwali from The Office:

• It’s basically Indian Halloween.
• S’mores and Samosas are equally delicious, but gross if eating one expecting the other.
• We don’t reference Along Came Polly enough.
• It’s not Christmas.
• Zombies are not invited.
• Saris are optional. Two headed costumes are a MUST.
• It’s important to look your best.
• Eat everything, even the not-s’mores.

None of these things are actually relevant to Diwali, but if you are curious you can read the write up on Smart Girls at the Party or try the clickbait posts on Buzzfeed India.

Also I just learned that this (very popular) Bollywood song takes place during Diwali, so that’s a thing.

Happy Diwali, everyone! Eat all the mithai!