India - the land of festivals, the place of diversity, with a lot of harmonious celebrations. Each festival unique in their own way and they all share a special and valuable message.
Every year we celebrate Diwali with pomp and joy, by lighting diyas, bursting fire crackers and have a delicious feast with so many sweets, but last year had a lot of changes. Celebrations had been online, everyone stuck in their homes, not being able to light diyas and enjoy the view of the bursting crackers, but due to this change, our environment remains clean. In the past when celebrations where held together, many people used to burst crackers which led to air pollution.
Diwali is one of the largest and most popular festival in India. The festival of lights is celebrated 20 days after Dussehra and falls between the months of October-November. The word ‘Deepavali’ means array of lamps. Diwali is a festival of prosperity and good over evil.
Celebration is not something that we wish to postpone or cancel, it is a part of our life. The best way to celebrate a festival is to make it in an eco-friendly and human friendly way, without destructing nature and without making the people unhappy. Especially during Diwali, we couldn’t just think about a Diwali without crackers or diya’s, but for the sake of nature we must try loosen from the grip of joy and happiness. Diwali is like a blessing for many people who sell earthen diyas, firecrackers, and Diwali lanterns. Instead of using chemical colors which cause allergy and pollution we could just grind some food items to make colors. For example rice powder, pulses or turmeric, cloves or cinnamon, cardamom or fennel etc., thereby we can make it into a green Diwali.
During Diwali, many of us use light bulbs, which produce heat and uses up a lot of energy, so instead of using light bulbs we can use LED’s as it doesn’t use that much electricity. We can try to conserve trees by making greeting cards using technology and sending them through WhatsApp and Facebook, instead of wasting paper. We can also use fresh and natural flowers like marigold, jasmine, roses and lilies for decoration to suite the festive ambiance.
We all know that Diwali is the time when we clean and replace our old things with new things. When we follow such measures to create an eco-friendly Diwali, we mustn’t forget that people who sell firecrackers and other things won’t make an earning and remain poor. So to help them we can give away our old things to them. The things that we consider as old might be new for them. It will light up their faces and become even brighter than the diya’s glow. Therefore, we must make it a human friendly Diwali too.
A Human being is by nature a social animal, who communicate and befriends with other humans and nature. So we should include other people who aren’t able to celebrate Diwali due to some causes and we should also treat nature in an amicable and serene way.