Diwali, the Fes­ti­val of Lights — a Hin­du cel­e­bra­tion that, accord­ing to Wikipedia, cel­e­brates the tri­umph of good over evil, was cel­e­brat­ed in Welling­ton over the week­end at an event at the Town Hall.

Deep­avali or Diwali, is one of the most pop­u­lar fes­ti­vals of India and of Hin­dus. It is also one of the most eager­ly await­ed fes­ti­vals in the Indi­an sub­con­ti­nent. Busi­ness men and com­mer­cial estab­lish­ments, con­sid­er it as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to boost their sales and increase prof­its, while indi­vid­u­als use the occa­sion to cel­e­brate life and strength­en rela­tion­ships. For chil­dren it is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to expe­ri­ence the joys of grow­ing up and get acquaint­ed with all types of fire crack­ers. It comes in the Hin­du month of Ash­wayu­ja, (also known as Ash­win or Aip­pasi), as per the lunar cal­en­dar and cor­re­sponds rough­ly with either Octo­ber or Novem­ber depend­ing upon the move­ment of the sun and the moon and their rel­a­tive posi­tions in space and time. [from wikipedia]

Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Karim Sahai was at the Town Hall, and took a few pho­tos of the beau­ti­ful look­ing lights and action. Blog­ger Dave5 was also there, and he added some pho­tos to his Flash5 flickr pro­file, of the love­ly Diwali lights designed by the Massey Tex­tile Design depart­ment.