Informant: Sid is a sophomore university student from a hindu background

Piece:

My family isn’t like orthodox hindu, so on Diwali every year instead of lighting candles to light up the entire house we just light one candle to be kept lit throughout the day in each room and then we use the lights like normal. I used to think it was sorta scrubby, so one year I convinced my parents to go all out so like we just had a ton of candles and it was a pain cause it smelled and was super dark and I couldn’t see anything and just felt weird.

Collector’s thoughts:

This piece shows how all traditions, including religious ones, feature what Dundes called “multiplicity and variation”. To the informant, the more “traditional” version of celebrating diwali was also the less authentic way. Rather, the combined use of candles and electric lights was a better way at capturing the importance of the day to the informant.