religion

Diwali or "the festival of lights" is the most important Indian festival. The celebration is based on Hindu calendar which is lunar, therefore falling on different dates every year in the western calendar, usually in October or November and always on a new moon day.
Festivities take place throughout India and in Indian communities worldwide. Traditionally small oil lamps and candles are lit and placed round home, in gardens and on roof tops. People exchange sweets, wear new clothes and jewellery and enjoy fireworks displays.

Durga Puja, the festival of victory over bad is the worship of 'Shakti' or the divine power. The stories are generally the fight between the evil and the good. Worship of Goddess Durga is based on myths where Durga symbolizes the divine power.According to Hindu mythology a demon named Mahishasura, earned the favor of Lord Bramha after a long and hard penance. Lord Bramha, impressed with his devotion, blessed him that no man would be able to kill him and that only a woman can kill him. Mahishasura was very pleased with this boon as he thought that a woman can never defeat him.

Come and walk beside me
Beneath the Christmas sky
See the redbirds singing
With love that gives a sigh

Christmas bells are ringing
Snow is on the ground
Love is there in beauty
In such a glorious crown

Peace and love a feeling
That comes within this place
Heaven's stars are shining
Filling hearts with grace

Paths are always taken
With thoughts the heart speaks of
On Christmas Day a journey
That fills our hearts with love.

As early as the fourth century B.C., the Romans engaged in an annual young man's rite to passage to the God Leprous. The names of the teenage women were placed in a box and drawn at random by adolescent men; thus, a man was assigned a woman companion for the duration of the year, after which another lottery was staged. After eight hundred years of this cruel practice, the early church fathers sought to end this practice. They found an answer in Valentine, a bishop who had been martyred some two hundred years earlier.