What does Diwali mean? There's no one answer, say British Columbians who celebrate festival

Diwali, known as the festival of lights, kicks off on Wednesday as the biggest holiday of the year for South Asian communities around the world — but they won't all be celebrating the same way or even for the same reasons.

Themes like lights, family and food are all apparent during Diwali, but some who celebrate say those themes are overly simplistic and don't capture the diversity of the festival.

"Just try and ask someone in India what Diwali means to them and you'll end up with 15 versions," said Sirish Rao, co-founder and artistic director of the Vancouver Indian Summer Festival.

Diwali is celebrated in several major religions around the world and, for each faith, it marks different stories and histories.

For some, it's to celebrate the return of the Hindu deity Rama after years of exile, or to honour the goddess of wealth. For others, it marks the passing of the Jain spiritual leader Mahavira, or the liberation of Sikh Guru Hargobind from prison.    

"It's endlessly interpretable and I think that's exactly what makes it such an important festival — to realize that there is no one story that we all share," Rao said.

He cautioned against treating Diwali as a singular event.

"There's a danger of making a monolith of anything," he said.

"From politics to the way we live to the way we understand our societies, we have to be aware that there are so many ways of doing things — and that's a good thing."

Range of celebrations

Those differences don't just fall along religious lines. As a holiday celebrated across the world, geography, culture and family tradition also play a role.

"For me, one thing we do every year is my parents give my sister and I money and they think about it as a form of sharing abundance," said Milan Singh, who has a PhD in communications studies at Simon Fraser University.

She's an Indo-Fijian Canadian who celebrates Diwali under the Hindu faith.

"You'll see a range of how it's celebrated across India and within the diaspora," Singh said.

For some, though, the importance is the underlying elements that are shared beyond borders and religions.

"Because so many cultures intersect — so many histories intersect — at Diwali time, it's really a time when we can celebrate a common theme of light overtaking darkness," said Paneet Singh, a playwright and filmmaker based in Burnaby who practises the Sikh faith.

"That light can be righteousness, it can be justice, it can be equity —  whatever someone takes it to mean."

With files from The Early Edition