Diwali Interview With Ruthra Deivasigamani

The following questions are focused on Diwali, a very significant holiday celebrated by Hindus, Jains, and Sikhs. The questions were answered by Ruthra Deivasigamani, the president of the International Student Association (ISA) of SUNY Poly. The purpose of this interview is to inform people of the significance of Diwali. Hopefully, you learn a few things about this holiday. Feel free to share this information with your friends and family, as it is a very important holiday that people should know about.

1.) What exactly is Diwali?

Diwali is celebrated because of defeating a demon called Narakasurar by God based on Hindu mythology, and since then to symbolize those good deeds win over bad ones, light over dark; people started celebrating by lighting up Diya and firing up crackers to celebrate the same.

2.) What are some words that come to your mind when you think of Diwali?

Home, family, happiness, light, delicious food, flowers (like Jasmine for aroma), and new and colorful dresses.

3.) What kinds of food are eaten during Diwali?

Traditional Indian handmade sweets and spicy/crispy snacks.

4.) What activities take place during Diwali?

In India, we have dance competitions, tug of war, musical chairs, and prayer sessions for God to encourage all the age groups to forget the miserable life they are living to enjoy on this day. At SUNY Poly, we had volunteers dance, and all together we had a prayer session, delicious dinner from Indian Restaurant (Minar), beautiful Rangoli drawings, and a DJ dance session.

5.) Do you know (approximately) how many students attended the Diwali event?

I think about 60 to 70 students attended this event including Ms. Cheri Elefante, the SGU Office Manager, and Mr. Tze Teck Sim, the Director of International Admissions and Student Services.

6.) What department(s) did you coordinate with to put together this event?

Celebrating a festival is difficult in times of a pandemic, especially having more people gathered in the same place and it is even more complicated to make sure that the safety protocols are followed. I have coordinated with Mr. Sean Clive, Director of Environmental Health and Safety, Ms. Jennifer George, Student Involvement Board, Ms. Cheri Elefante, Mr. Tze Teck Sim, Mr. John Reale (Auxiliary Services), the logistics committee, the fire department of Utica for fireworks, University Police and Sodexo.

7.) What is your favorite part of Diwali?

In general, households of Indian families come together to wish each other well. The festival is one excuse to forget the bitter memories and forgive each other. Every family member focuses on gifting one another or seeing their loved ones smile irrespective of the fact that it is expensive or not.

Similar to that, I saw SUNY Poly come together to support each other irrespective of the differences in cultural and national backgrounds. For the international graduate students, the interaction with the other students in the SUNY Poly community is very minimal and this festival allowed us to befriend other people. We danced together, we ate together, and we were all happy together.

This festival was celebrated after lots of effort, and the tiredness of those efforts disappeared when I saw everybody smile and enjoy their moment in the festival.

This was my favorite part of my Diwali at SUNY Poly.

8.) Do you have any advice for future students who may coordinate this event?

I do have a piece of advice that one should be not selfish in keeping the happiness to themselves and try to spread it to other people. To do so, we should have more celebrations like this! Also, never wait for anybody to initiate these kinds of celebrations because if one keeps waiting, time passes by, and nothing happens.

Image obtained from Squarespace