'They bring happiness': Family business celebrates Diwali with treats
The festival of lights will be celebrated globally Wednesday
Om Mohapatra remembers Diwali in India as a grand affair always marked with the scent of homemade, freshly baked sweets and a sky lit up by colourful fireworks launched from streets corners and fields.
Here in Canada, he marks it with a few brightly lit lamps and a drive down to NASA Food Centre, a family business offering trays of more than 55 different kinds of Diwali treats in Barrhaven.
NASA Foods is one of the few spots where the rush and excitement before Diwali can be felt here in Ottawa. People across the world will celebrate the Hindu festival of lights on Wednesday.
"Unlike here, people in India light up their own fireworks, [there were] very few restrictions about where you can have fireworks, usually it [was] in front of the house," said Mohapatra, who has lived in Ottawa with his wife since 2009.
"[The restrictions here] was the biggest surprise when we first came."
20 years of sweets
The kitchen at NASA Foods pumps out hundreds of sweets a day to fill up the aluminum trays they have lined at the centre of the store, which is decorated annually with multi-coloured streamers hung across the ceiling.
The family-run business has been making sweets for almost 20 years. The variety of treats draws in hundreds to the store during Diwali, including customers from Toronto and Montreal.
"It's a big deal for the whole Indian community," said Aman Walia, the store's manager. "They celebrate with their family, eat some deserts, catch up with old friends — that's what Diwali is about."
Most of the sweets are made by his mom, Surinder Walia, while his dad, Narinder, helps manage the store, he said. His parents founded the shop almost two decades ago.
"It's a blessing to work with them," Aman said. "Just [for] them to [be] working for the last 20 years is an amazing thing."
'They bring happiness'
As they pour in, customers grab one of the metallic-coloured boxes stacked against the sweets table. Many walk out with more than five boxes filled with the various milk fudges and honey-dipped sweets.
"Some of it is to share with my daughter and her family, and sometimes when people visit you during Diwali you have to entertain them with sweets," Mohapatra said while shopping.
Rashmi Dheer and her husband left the shop Tuesday afternoon with eight boxes. Many of the sweets, she said, are for her neighbours and friends.
"They bring happiness on your face," she said. "Everyone gets a box and then I get some back too."