Diwali and Hindu New Year celebration

Speaking of good food, hundreds of vibrant dishes, glowing lights, and centuries-old traditions filled the BAPS Sri Swaminarayan Mandir today in Tampa. Families gathered to celebrate both Diwali, the festival of lights honoring the triumph of good over evil, and the Hindu New Year. Photojournalist Albert Gamboa takes us inside the sights and sounds of the celebration. Personally, New Year's is where I get to kind of reset, reflect on the past year, and kind of make new goals for myself in the year. So Diwali is a five-day event, Diwali being at the center of that, and the New Year's is the main event where you offer the mountain of food and decorate it with all the cultural events, and everyone's dressed up nice, you know, welcoming everyone. wear traditional Indian outfits and then as you can see they're colorful and we just like to be more bright and light and celebrate. So in the spirit of that we always wear some colorful new actually sometimes new dresses. So this year's theme for Diwali is light beyond lamps so it's for us to reflect on to reflect on you know things beyond beyond just the light right we have to reflect on our values and whatever We believe in the mountain of food that you see behind me is basically made by each volunteer here, and there are hundreds and thousands of vegetarian dishes personally made by the volunteers to offer to God. Ankut literally means a mountain of food. It's anything from sweets to spicy or sweet. Salty, whatever it is, whatever you're able to make an offer with devotion to God, obviously He doesn't have a preference, He'll accept whatever devotion you are offering Him. So every hour throughout the day we do Aarti, so it's a where we wave the fire lamp around the deities and it's just a show of our devotion. This would have to be my favorite day because we all get together as a community, we come together, celebrate, you get to see everyone and I think it's just a joyous moment for all of us. Whatever things that we do today it's believed that if you Then you'll be able to continue that, and it's a good start. We want everyone to feel included. That's the whole heart of Diwali, that everyone is welcome, everyone is included, and everyone should experience this maybe once in their lifetime. What a beautiful celebration, really joyful is the word, and I love all the colorful decorations and outfits. It kind of helps us all get into the holiday spirit, right? I mean, no matter what culture, how you're seeing them celebrated, joy is the overriding theme, right? Exactly, and I'll appreciate that.