Diwali, the festival of lights symbolises the vanquishing of ignorance by knowledge.
10 years ago, a small number of organisations in association with the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, decided to put an event together in a bid to create a better awareness of Diwali and spread the message of light and hope across London. Hence, Diwali in London (DIL) began on the 14th of November 2001. That event had only 3 organisations supporting it.
In these last 10 years, DIL has grown to 11organisations (with support from the current Mayor of London, Boris Johnson) and the numbers of visitors keep increasing. The estimate this year was that we had around 25,000 visitors. The purpose remains to share light, joy and all that Diwali has to offer, with everyone. To uphold the spirit of this purpose, no entry charge was levied on any visitor.
The sponsors this year were Lyca Mobile, Sight Savers, Incredible India, Zee TV and Asian Voice.
Programme as it unfolded:
A stall was set up to give out free sarees. Volunteers wrapped these saris around the visiting ladies and then invited them to join us in playing garba
Garba was played between 2pm and 3pm. It included a lot of visitors and volunteers and the feedback from the attendees was very positive.
There were pure Vegetarian delicacies for sale throughout
3.15pm marked the opening ceremony by Diwali messages by several people including the Deputy Mayor of London, Richard Barnes
3.30 to 6.20 pm – messages from a few spiritual leaders. Guruji, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar delivered a short message that was very well received by the crowd.
This was followed by several live acts- like an all-girl Dhol band and the likes of Preeya Kalidas and Foji taking the stage.
Art of Living had several volunteers, who made us proud by helping at the event and contributed towards making this programme a tremendous success.
Art of Living + IAHV had a stand, that was very popular – our volunteers did outstanding work by attracting the crowd and keeping them interested in what we stand for/ offer to all.
6.20 to 7.30 pm marked the end of the event with Aarti and the closing ceremony.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's Diwali Message:
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