While flowers, diyas, lights and lanterns continue to be common ways of celebrating Diwali, some communities celebrate the festival differently.

Being the boiling pot of culture that Mumbai is, each community has a different way of celebrating a festival. Even as Diwali brings home light and prosperity, there is not just one way to go about it. Communities around the city get together to exchange sweets, light diyas, draw rangolis, and all in the spirit of goodness.

Despite the similarities in the aartis and the firecrackers that bind Diwali poojas and celebrations together, there are some rituals peculiar to each community. For Vandana Gandhi, a Sindhi and a banker, the day of Diwali pooja begins early. She explains that for Sindhis, Diwali is called Diyari and is made up of rituals peculiar from the rest.

The pooja setup at Vandana Gandhi’s place

“We have a hattri, which is essentially a metal plate with sticks on it. It is decorated with coloured paper and has a picture of Goddess Lakshmi on it too. A diya is placed on it before the pooja. The hattri is symbolic of a house or a shop, as the pooja is conducted,” she explains. Vandana adds that gold and silver coins make for an important part of their celebrations. “We put them all in a bowl of uncooked milk and water. It is said that when these coins knock against each other, they make a jingling noise that attract Goddess Lakshmi.” She adds that these coins are only removed from the mixture at bhaiduj.

While Vandana sticks to the traditional celebrations, the Rotaract Club of Navi Mumbai Hillside chose to celebrate this Diwali in Nepali style — making it an animal-friendly celebration called Tihar. The president of the club Smit Mirani explains that Tihar is a five-day-long celebration for Nepali Hindus.

“Since celebrating all five days wasn’t possible for us, we decided to celebrate just the second day of the festival, which is called Kukur Tihar,” he says. Smit didn’t like how the festival affects dogs, and this is the organisation’s way of making it a safer festival for them as well. “Every year, we meet our family and friends on Diwali, but this year, we felt that all this simply neglectes animals,” he says, adding, “Due to the loud firecrackers, dogs tend to hide themselves and even starve for days. We want people to respect animals and stop bursting firecrackers. To celebrate Kukur Tihar, we will be doing a small pooja and feed at least fifty stray dogs.”

The Kali pooja at Ramakrishna Mission

While other communities are busy celebrating the festival of lights as a symbol of the return of Lord Ram to Ayodhya, the Bengali community in the city lights candles and diyas to ward off darkness. This is the time for Kali pooja for this community.

Celebrated on the new moon day of the Hindu month Kartik, especially in West Bengal, Odisha, Assam and Bangladesh, the pooja itself takes place through the night and is often associated with tantric practices. Since one of the biggest worshippers of Goddess Kali was Sri Ramakrishna, the Ramakrishna Mission in the city hosts a pooja on that night. “We light 14 candles to ward off evil spirits on the night before Kali pooja. Then on the night of the pooja itself, the programme starts at 9 pm and continues through the night,” says Swamiji, who is one of the Sadhus, who will head the pooja. “There will also be a number of Kali kirtans sung through the night. At 5 am the next morning, there will be a purnarti and then prasad will be distributed among followers. Many followers come each year to attend the pooja and stay through the night,” says Swamiji, as he heads off to see to the preparations.