In my obliviousness, I almost scheduled a meetup today. [Is it my fault that I celebrated Hanukkah more than Diwali as a kid?] To atone for this earlier oversight, therefore, I bring you the official Diwali greeting from the government of Canada:
“On behalf of Canada’s new government, I would like to extend my warmest greetings and best wishes to members of the Indo-Canadian community as you celebrate Diwali… Every year, this joyous occasion is celebrated by some one billion people of the Hindu, Sikh and Jain faiths around the world. And that includes some one million of our fellow citizens right here in Canada. Friends, as you gather with your loved ones amid a sea of flickering flames, please know that the thoughts of our government are with you. Over the years, the Indo-Canadian community has made a tremendous contribution to our great country. Your work ethic and commitment to family and community serve as an inspiration to all…Happy Diwali to all. Namaste. Sat Sri Akal. Thank you.” [Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada]
Why Canada? Well, Ottawa is closer to North Dakota than Washington DC is, but mainly it’s because Google News brought it to my attention, whereas I had to go rooting around for the American counterpart.
Not to be outdone by their neighbors up north, the White House celebrated Diwali with a party for the fourth year running, although Bush was away and so sent a written greeting instead. Here’s a description of the event:
The White House celebrated Diwali, the festival of lights, in the historic Indian Treaty Room in the Old Executive Building for the fourth successive year. More than 150 guests were in attendance, among them many prominent members of the Indian American community. President George W Bush, who was busy campaigning for his besieged Republican Party in Pennsylvania and Virginia, however failed to be there.Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes keynoted the event as chief guest, and Jay Hein, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of the Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, lit the diya. [Link]
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p>BTW, I’m pretty sure that’s the “Native American treaty room” and not the “Brownz treaty room” but I’ll take what we can get especially since Diwali did not merit an official proclamation unlike “Leif Erikson Day, 2006“, “General Pulaski Memorial Day, 2006“, “Gold Star Mother’s Day, 2006” or “National Character Counts Week, 2006“. But who am I to complain – the White House at least knew when Diwali is!
Related posts: A stamp of approval, White House celebrates Diwali, In Barbie’s Closet
UPDATE:
I realize I may not have been clear enough about this originally. The President was unable to attend Diwali celebrations at the White House in part because he was campaigning for Senator Allen’s re-election bid:
President Bush last week helped raise money in two of the year’s most controversial re-election campaigns, stumping for Republican Rep. Don Sherwood in Pennsylvania and Sen. George Allen in Virginia. [Link]
Happy Diwali y’all!
hops up and down doing Snoopy dance, cooing Diwali carols
wishing all of u a happy and prosperous Diwali.
Only if you can handle becoming even more white on the inside 😉
??
…anyways I’m seconding Yeti’s dance although I dunno what Diwali carols are. Happy Diwali 🙂
“HAPPY DIWALI AND A PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR TO ALL SM FOLKS”From the “OVER 60 GUJARATI DAD”
Happy Diwali y,all.
happy diwali, saal mubarakh to everyone… and of course happy days for all who don’t celebrate as well.. a holiday is a holiday is a holiday for all to enjoy… (i know i enjoy xmas, and other festivities, although it may not be in my faith)
may your year be filled with love, happiness, laughter, and many many many hugs and twirls…
Gori, you mean? 😉
Thanks for encouraging me to write. People have told me to do it for years and I used to be quite a prolific (if not good) writer, of many things – diares, poems, study notes, lecture summaries etc. I wrote all the time. Not so anymore. Don’t know why the change.
Plus, alot of what I have to write about has already been done, and probably much better than I could.
But it’s still an idea I toy with.
The “west” is no more depraved than elsewhere, Tash, but I still say America is boring compared to India, in my opinion. Though sometimes I need boring to balance out the hustle and bustle of small town and metro Indian life.
No, but after weighing myself this morning, I have gained 10 pounds in the past two weeks. Yikes! It’s my high carb content diet.
In the ashram I stayed in no bhang/ganja allowed. Not even coffee/tea. But the kheer is intoxicating!
Find peace deep within the “om” of home? Ha ha ha. Corny, but funny.
Pardesi Gori can be translated as Foriegn beauty also. But literally it means foreign golden girl coz gora/gori does not really mean white, rather it means gold/golden.
There is one avatar of Krishna by the name of Goranga Mahaprabhu – The Golden Limbed Master. He is revered by Gaudiya (Goriya?) Vaishnavas. He is referred to as “Gora” for short in Bengali.
Also, another name for Parvati, the wife of Mahadeva Shiva is “Gori” – golden beauty. Hence, Jai Jai Gori Shankar.
Already done, except it’s not exclusively chick lit…
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product//0767915747/ref=cm_aya_asin.title/104-0809055-8151914?ie=UTF8
This book is HILARIOUS. I laughed because she was funny, and I laughed because she was true.
I had been in almost every situation I read in that book.
And, many people tell me I look like the cover pic of Mahadeva with pink sunglasses, not just because I have several pairs of retro style sunglasses like that, but similar facial structure as that pic.
Oh my god. Is this for real?
Is what for real? That book? It’s kind of an autobiographical-travelogue-comedy. A very quick, funny and endearing read.
Did you mean “Gauri”?
Gori, Gauri, same meaning, different spelling.
I thought Gauri was another name for Radha, and meant cowherdess.
not considered new year’s for kannadigas, but happy deepavali! yesterday was actually amavyasa, today is padya (celebrating the king’s return). anyone probably one level too deep in the details 😉
No no no… never mind.
Yeah…never mind.
I am curious now 🙁 .
‘cept I gotta quote the book title:
This book was written by a NZ journalist too…double burn 🙁
I can think of one thing that’s even more hilarious…hmmm…
HAPPY DIWALI all 🙂
Chand Bibi, Radha is called Gauri too because She is golden complexioned, described like saffron that is ground on a slab of pure gold (imagine how beautiful).
Gopi means cowherdess.
Goranga Mahaprabhu is considered a combined incarnation of both Radha and Krishna (Shyam and Gauri). He is considered shyam (black) on the inside and gaura (golden) on the outside, hence the name Goranga (golden limbed) Mahaprabhu.
For Radha Krishna bhaktas deewali has many hidden rasik meanings that are not known to those not bhaktas of them.
This whole month of Kartika (this year from Oct 8 to Nov 8) is the month of Radha. Vaishnavas are doing Urja Vrat or the vrat (vow) of urja (power, or shakti or Radha) this month. It is also known as niyama seva vrat, because so many niyamas are observed at this time.
All in all, it’s a good time of year for spiritual progress.
Gori and gauri are two different words, with two different pronunciations, and two different meanings.
President George W Bush, who was busy campaigning for his besieged Republican Party in Pennsylvania and Virginia , however failed to be there.
Anyone else think it would be amusingly ironic if Bush were campaigning for Sen. Allen during this Diwali season?
Happy diwali, sal mubarak!
Sakshi – just read the whole comment thread. You’ll get the hilarity.
I always thought Gauri referred to Parvati and not Radha. …learn something every day. Here’s a site that gives a meaning for Gauri in terms of color. That generally seems to be the case on the “internets”, per Google.
Here’s MY favorite Gauri, SRK’s wife.
comment: gori and gauri are definitely two different words!!
question: what does pardesi mean?
RE: Holy Cow. I’m not an oversensitive fundamentalist, and I don’t think the cover in inappropriate (hello, we’re idol worshippers), however… I did read the back blurb and a few pages of the book in a bookstore once, and I found it a little condescending. I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t read the whole thing, but still.
Hahaha, here’s an awesome theory connecting the English word garish with the goddess Gauri, also based on color.
Amitabh, milli, Sure, they are two different words as used today and that is clear to all. And I too thought there’s no connection until a few minutes ago when I saw PGs’ comment. We don’t know for a fact that they were unconnected words. What’s the point of simply insisting that they are different? Based on what? We don’t know something, therefore it is false? Google around and you’ll see that both words are certainly about color, although they can still be of different origins.
milli, pardesi means foreign.
You are most probably right that Gori and Gauri are connected. Gauri is a Sanskrit word and possibly Gori is simplified Pali, Hindi word. There are quite few such simplifications.
Quick Sanskrit info.
Gura Varna means fair complexion. I have never come across gaura / gauri in connection w/ golden. Suvarna, hema and kanchan are more commonly used Sanskrit words for gold/en.
Sorry, got it wrong – Gauri is the name of Parvati not Radha, according to two web sources I found.
He is – I should have made that clearer:
Holy $$$$! I just saw that the first link in #76 is from the website of the ashram of Swami Premananda, who’s serving a double life sentence for rape now. His case got a lot of attention in the early 90’s. Not that it makes the info false since other sources seem to have similar meanings – brilliant/gloriously colored/yellow etc.
***kin’ A!
Apparently not clear to all:
“Gori, Gauri, same meaning, different spelling.” — post 65
Kurma avatar, I’m not saying they’re unrelated words, in terms of their origin or literal meaning. But I think you answer your own question when you say that they are used differently today. The context that words are used in is important, it’s what gives them their meaning in that moment. I would not equate Gori with Gauri in this day and age, particularly since one is slang (often used in a derogatory way) and the other, a name for a goddess (perhaps a garish one!)
Gori with Gauri in this day and age, particularly since one is slang (often used in a derogatory way)
Not at all, there is a glacier in Himalayas (Nanda Devi), that is known Gori Ganga. There is also a river in India known as Gori River.
Can be used as a slang, but it really is not.
Happy Diwali to all!
Re: Holy Cow
Read it. Like it. It no Booker Prize book, but it’s a fun “Pink Lit” book (pink books immediately get slotted into a different category) and was ‘fun’ because I read it while traveling in India. Not really a condescending book, just the experience of a white woman who goes through exploring many of the religions of India. She tries to live them all as real as she can – which is far more than I can say for myself. It reads like a blog.
Happy Diwali and Eid Mubarak!
In some prayers Srimati Radharani is greeted with titles that most people generally associate with Parvati, which have gone from titles to names. Gaura certainly means golden, and She is certainly Golden. I don’t know anything about Gori, I never heard it before a few years ago—I guess it’s Hindi. The gaud/gaur in Goriya/Gaudiya Vaishnvism is a totally different r/d sound, and signifies Bengal, not golden.
It can be dangerously tempting to unkindly swat down everything said by someone whose tone and manner one doesn’t like— even though one may end up scraping against things held dear by innocent bystanders. It is also foolish to brag about one’s treasures in front of a crowd of strangers one has already made angry. Luckily, we can all listen to milady Anna* and have a nice, harmonious weekend. I hope everyone’s weekend was as nice and sweet offline as mine was! Mmmm, kheer.
Safety note for future Diwalis—-keep a fire extinguisher and blanket on hand. Also some aloe vera gel. 🙂
(I got the most delighful email from one of my oldest friends today, who’s based in DC now, telling me I should meet Anna. 🙂 I felt so ahead of the curve! 😀 )
Hey yeah, isn’t it some big Eid ending Ramadan now? Eid Mubarak everyone!
milli
Yup, I know. I wouldn’t be talking about going to the Gori temple or my homies wanting to date a Gauri :-). But PG was trying to explain her name. Many of us here have a weakness for cleverly chosen handles. So her explanation for that can include some obscure connection from long ago. It doesn’t have to be current usage. She knows that everyone here knows that Gori and Gauri are different, but she also knows that not many here would know the connection. So she casually drops this:
knowing that the rest of us probably have no clue about the connection. I don’t and I was just about to ask when I see that Chand bibi has already stumbled in at #66, providing the perfect excuse for PG to expound on the topic in #72, which is some awesome trivia for us to enjoy. I don’t get how people can repeatedly assume ignorance of the facts on PG’s part. She’s just being a troll there, although not in a bad way. If interested in knowing the connection, we could say “please be a sweetie and explain, PG” 😀 and if not, ignore it. I don’t see why so many lose their cool here in the context of PG.
Now, don’t get my started on PG’s #23.
Perfect, Saheli!
Happy Eid, y’all.
Bush didn’t make an official proclamation (which wouldn’t make sense anyway as the date of Diwali changes every year), but there was a letter of official greetings sent. Available in English at: http://newdelhi.usembassy.gov/uploads/images/EPnQySyvW50Wa6sOn5yPmg/diwalimessage06.pdf. It is also available in Hindi and Urdu.
Today is another Hindu festival for us, Dawat Puja. It’s a day when people of a certain caste (yeah, I know…) which, in ancient India, made its living as scribes and bookeepers, seek God Chitragupta’s blessing for the tools of their trade – the pen and ink. In fact, dawat means ink in Hindi. We have modernized the puja by offering our laptops and PDA’s as well as our Bics for the pundit to bless. One nice feature of Dawat Puja is that you are not supposed to do any work that involves writing after the puja. My 14-year old is looking forward to that.
Yeah, this is the weirdest (and perhaps my favorite) pooja day in my Hindu life, for lots of reasons – one being that I always had to borrow my friends’ writing utensils since all of ours had to be at the altar all day. Obviously, we were not as lucky as your daughter to get excused from school and studying, although I remember back in Bihar, it was actually a school holiday. Here in the states, my mom would wake us up early early in the morning and make us do the pooja before school and send us off still sleepy and frazzled. That stuff you have to write down always bummed me out a little because it makes you reflect on your accomplishments, and as a 3-21 year old, you neither accomplish much, nor do you know how high to shoot for (esp if you’re a slacker like me). I always imagined the gods laughing at me if my estimate was too high.
I think we actually did two poojas, one Chitragupta and another one which has something to do with brothers and sisters (that only females do). First, we’re supposed to curse our brothers, then, during the pooja, we prick our tounges with thorns for cursing them, and ask God to protect them (no, I’m not getting this confused with Rakhi). In India you can go all out with the poojas, and I remember bricks, long wooden poles, and girls jumping for something…. just really quirky-stunts… stuff you can’t recreate as well in the West (I forget exactly what we do because I only remember the watered-down, compromised version my mom carried out in our back yard here). At the end, we make necklaces made from cotton, haldi and sindoor and send them to our brothers/cousins in India. And back in India, the fam used to go all out with the meat eating, which isn’t something we did for any other pooja (and not something you would do for a pooja in general).
it is called bhaiya dooj or bhai dooj .This day is also known as Yama Dwiteeya as it is believed that on this day Yama Raj, the God of Death, visited Yami, his sister.Yami, who puts the auspicious mark on his forehead and prays for his well being. So it’s held that anyone who receives a tilak from his sister on this day would never be hurled into hell. It is a most touching moment for the family members when even distant brothers reach their sisters to strengthen that holy tie. The sister applies tilak and waves aarati to her brother, and the brother offers loving presents to the sister .
It is very famous in bengal and is celebrated all over north india .
Gauri and Gori, in their different contexts, are spelled the same in Hindi as well as Bengali, the two Indian languages I am most familiar with.
Safed means white in urdu-hindi and sveta means white in sanskrit.
Gori/Gauri means golden.
The most derogatory term I’ve heard for “white people” in India is “lal bandar”, red monkey, coz of the pinkish undertones of our skin which in fact resembles some of the tones of the monkeys there.
Funny, whenever I came to learn the meaning of this term and henceforth whenever someone called that out to me in the streets, I retorted with …. well, you can imagine, I don’t want to get banned again, but think of the most obvious comeback having to do with monkeys.
Speaking of Hindu mahotsavas and vrats, what about Karva Chauth? That one always burns my inner feminist.