Students Celebrate Diwali on Campus

Students, faculty and staff joined together on Wednesday, October 21, to celebrate the Indian festival Diwali.  Students decorated the campus with elaborate sand art drawings and candle lights in preparation for the event.  The student affairs office provided Indian cuisine and students ate, danced and enjoyed time together with faculty and staff. 

Diwali is also known as 'the festival of lights', because on this day, people illuminate their home and premises with diyas -cotton string wicks inserted in small clay pots filled with oil- and colorful lights.  Diwali bears significance in the Hindu culture as well as among Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains. The legends connected to the festival are different for different religions.  

Shikha Agrawal, a full-time MS Software Engineering student, organized the Diwali decorations and arranged mehndi (henna tattoos) for attendees.  In recounting the evening, she said, “I appreciate Carnegie Mellon’s efforts to not only provide fun student activities for us, but also to incorporate our different cultures.  I’ve grown up celebrating Diwali with my family and it was a pleasure for me to share this experience with my classmates.”