Students celebrate Diwali at the IEC’s first Dinner and Dialogues of the year
The IEC sought to facilitate learning about the Diwali festival through hands-on activities and open discussions.
Every year, hundreds of millions of Hindus, Sikhs, and Jains from around the world celebrate Diwali. While the traditions and significance of Diwali may vary across cultures and religious groups, the holiday is generally a time for large social gatherings and jollities.
In the lead-up to this year’s Diwali, which falls on October 20, the International Education Centre (IEC) hosted one of its recurring Dinner and Dialogues special events themed after the holiday. The IEC hosted the function in the Student Centre’s Square One Presentation Room on October 16.
Starting at 5 p.m., about 60 students gathered for a two-hour program of creative activities, open discussion, a Polaroid photo booth, and free food. At reception, attendees helped themselves to stickers featuring an anthropomorphic deer, beaver, and penguin, each holding a lit diya, a small clay oil lamp typically associated with Diwali.
Within the venue, attendees were seated at tables adorned with a black cloth, a gold-coloured table runner, and flameless candles. Following a brief introduction, IEC student-staff launched an open discussion period featuring prompts such as “How do you usually celebrate Diwali, and has that changed over time?” and “What do you think festivals like Diwali can teach us about unity and togetherness?” for each table.
The gathering quickly turned into a lively conversation as students introduced themselves to one another. At each table, groups used the prompts to break the ice and soon shifted to familiar topics, from memories of Kerala and Delhi to the stress of midterms.
Discussions continued into the second segment of the event, wherein attendees decorated diyas of their own. Over the course of the evening, the vacant clay lamps took on shades of lavender, olive, azure, and saffron as their new owners patterned them with acrylic paint.
With “Dialogues” sufficiently underway, the IEC fulfilled their promise of “Dinner” with rich servings of salad, rice, chana, butter chicken, dessert squares, and an assortment of soft drinks, all of which were thoroughly depleted over the remainder of the evening, save for the chana.
To wrap up the event, IEC staff announced the winners of a raffle by randomly picking names from the attendance list. The staff members then arranged for digital U of T bookstore gift cards to be sent out to three lucky students who were drawn.
The Medium interviewed attendees after the event to get their thoughts on the evening’s proceedings.
For fourth-year economics major Rajbir, attending Dinner and Dialogues was a no-brainer. “I do celebrate Diwali, and it was a Diwali night dinner, so I came.” The function lived up to Rajbir’s general expectation of school events as opportunities to socialize and have fun, though he said the food was better than he anticipated.
Fourth-year biology specialist Sruthi Mulpur said she and her friends were thrilled to attend Dinner and Dialogues. “It felt like a fun chance to wear Indian ethnic clothes and enjoy something familiar yet different on campus,” she shared. “Since we’re all in our fourth year, we thought this might be one of our last chances to do something like this together.”
She also commended the hosts for putting together such a “memorable” and “well-organized” event. “The group discussions about Diwali brought back memories from my childhood in India and gave me a chance to reflect on what the festival means to me. It was also nice to see people from different backgrounds participating and learning together.”
Third-year political science major Samuel Kamalendran, who oversaw Dinner and Dialogues as a Programming Team Lead for the IEC, confirmed that each aspect of the Diwali-themed program had a specific intention.
“We wanted students to have a great time getting to know a bit more about Diwali, about the culture behind it, engage with that on a very physical level through the decoration activity, and finally have a great time with their friends, meeting new people through the Diwali-inspired food.” He said that his team had been planning the event since the beginning of the summer.
Kamalendran concluded, “I would like to invite readers to our next Dinner and Dialogues, which will celebrate Fall Harvest, and will take place on November 6, also in the Presentation Room.” He clarified that Fall Harvest will have a C$5 entry fee.
