Diwali You Want

Curious why there were fireworks popping in your neighborhood last week? It was all in celebration of Diwali, the pan-Asian holiday rooted in Hinduism. This week learn more about Diwali traditions and the story of the Ramayana.All this and more....Support us at Patreon and SpreadshirtJoin the Community on DiscordLearn more great religion facts on Facebook and InstagramLearn more on our official websiteBe sure to check out Blackbird Farm and Apothecary on Facebook and Instagram. **Katie Dooley  00:12now, this is the start of it, right. That's how I'm gonna start this show. Yeah, Preston, we're heading into the holiday season for Preston Meyer  00:20the holidays. Don't you mean that Christmas season? Katie Dooley  00:26You forgot one of my favorite holidays that we're going to talk about on the holy watermelon podcast. Preston Meyer  00:35And what's your favorite holiday? Katie Dooley  00:38I mean, it's actually Christmas. But today we're gonna talk about Diwali. i The the, the holiday for the Vedic religion. Preston Meyer  00:50Yeah, it's pretty much the big deal for most Hindu people. And it's not just a Hindu holiday. I thought that was kind of cool to dive into that in my studies. Yeah, Katie Dooley  01:03it is celebrated by Jain Sikhs and even some Buddhists. And in my reading, I kind of likened it to you don't North America. You're not necessarily Christian, if you're celebrating Christmas. It's just such a big deal that everyone jumps on board. Preston Meyer  01:26Yeah, it's it's basically the pan Indian festival of lights. You could call it the shorter Indian Hanukkah, maybe. Katie Dooley  01:37I like that. I also find it really interesting. It is official, an official holiday. And I think it's 13 countries and I just found which countries very interesting. So Fiji, Guyana, India, Malaysia, Mauritius, Myanma Nepal, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. Which that's almost every continent. Yeah. How's it as an official holiday? Preston Meyer  02:05I mean, white folks did a pretty good job of shipping Indian kids all over the place. So we've got that. Well, yeah. Katie Dooley  02:12So I mean, obviously, there's Indian people all over the world. But to make it an official holiday, it's not official holiday in Canada, you know, we have a huge population, right? Or in America. So I thought was interesting that Mauritius and Trinidad and Tobago were the two that stood out to me, Africa and North America. Preston Meyer  02:31Sure. Yeah. Makes sense. I just kind of interesting. It's a holiday that is all over the place. And it seems like an awful lot of people don't really have any clue what it is. Katie Dooley  02:45No. And actually, by the time this episode airs, Diwali will actually be over. It was on November 4 This year, but it changes every year. There's a Hindu lunar calendar, kinda like there's an Islamic lunar calendar. And so the date changes based off of moon cycles. Preston Meyer  03:06So we have writing about Diwali, dating back about 1300 years. Kind of nifty. Know that we have some solid history behind this. But Diwali has been celebrated certainly longer than that. How Katie Dooley  03:21long would we have celebrated Christmas in comparison? I mean, it's not like to see they were like, yeah, it's Jesus's second birthday. I mean, married Joseph probably celebrated his birthday because it's their kid but as we know it now. Preston Meyer  03:41You know what? I don't know exactly. Once we started celebrating Christmas. I haven't done that study yet. But as we creep closer to Christmas, that is actually a thing that is on our horizons, too. We Katie Dooley  03:54are going to do an episode on the Nativity. So we'll get that answer for you. Then I was just curious. You know, in North America, when Christmases we think it's the be all end all that you know, something it was probably definitely celebrated longer than Preston Meyer  04:09Yeah, I digress. So Diwali, coincides with the Hindu New Year, changes every year as it follows the Hindu lunar calendar, as Katie mentioned, and it's done on a new moon sometime between October and November. So shifts a little bit. That's kind of the framework that we have from year to year. Katie Dooley  04:31So the month it happens in is called Karthika Kartika Kartika. Preston Meyer  04:37I mean, you can make it sound as wide as you want. Wrong. Katie Dooley  04:41Absolutely. Well, there's no way we're doing this right. And it's on happens on the darkest day of Crytek. So on the new moon, and I am assuming is that because it's the festival lights that would make the lights more brilliant. I think that's part of it, but I'll see you in further the metaphor. I have, and we'll get into this a little bit more. But it's the festival lights. It's about good defeating evil. So, emphasizing that light in the darkness, metaphor, Preston Meyer  05:10light overcoming darkness, intelligence and wisdom overcoming ignorance. There's kind of some heavy handed symbolism here. But I like it Katie Dooley  05:23isn't, isn't every major holiday, some heavy handed symbolism? Yes. Now, I love this that Diwali is generally especially in India, a five day festival with the third day being the Preston Meyer  05:41big day, the climax of the whole thing. Wow. And Katie Dooley  05:44I liked that because it's like, we basically do that with Christmas. But we just stress ourselves out way more, because chances are we're still at work. But there is that sort of build up and run down for NAFTA and they just accept it. And I like that. Preston Meyer  06:01Yeah, I like the first day is literally clean your house and get ready. Katie Dooley  06:09Yeah, prepare your house. There's a tradition of buying a new metal kitchen tool as a sign of good luck. You do that on the first day too. Preston Meyer  06:21That's optimistic. Katie Dooley  06:22I like it. Preston Meyer  06:24I like that feeling when I bought a new kitchen tool. It's definitely a I'll probably use this a lot. This will change Katie Dooley  06:31and you totally would use it for what the next days are coming for ya. So you can really like plan a great day to is like the big prep day where people would decorate their homes with the lamps, food and create rang rangoli patterns on the floor using colored sand. I highly recommend looking up rangoli on YouTube and just like relaxing for hours. Preston Meyer  06:59It's a great way to just zone out it's better than just staring into a fire because you get to watch this intense piece of art being created. Knowing that it's not permanent. It's going to be blown away and swept up, tossed away. It's the the impermanence is a nifty part of that art tradition. Oh, Katie Dooley  07:22see, I like the whole like ASMR watching satisfying things aspect. Sure. Yeah. So if that's your jam, we'll look up some rangoli to celebrate Diwali this year, right. Preston Meyer  07:36I've watched so much on Reddit. It's probably a little embarrassing to admit how much time I've spent there. Katie Dooley  07:47Just watching rangoli Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Preston Meyer  07:51I love it. Right. It actually took me a while before I realized that it was rangoli some cool standard. Yeah, but it has a name and it's pretty nifty and Katie Dooley  08:03it's very, I won't say very specific to Diwali. But it is a big part of Diwali. Obviously if you want to wrangle the in June you go hard. Sure. You can't get that good. If you don't, I Preston Meyer  08:15presume I think you need a lot of practice. Katie Dooley  08:19Anyway, days of Diwali, like I said, it's the big day. And it's marked with prayers, fireworks again, festival of light, big celebrations and eating all that food that we prepared. Preston Meyer  08:32Yeah, as I was studying, I've discovered that this day is kind of like the Fourth of July in a lot of ways, especially when we're talking about emergency room intake. Because fireworks I Katie Dooley  08:49was looking up to local Diwali celebrations. I thought it'd be something fun we could do. Yeah, we've actually missed them all. They were early. I don't understand why Preston Meyer  08:58we've already missed them all and we're recording before Diwali before Diwali. Yeah. Katie Dooley  09:02They were in the middle of October. Not to date this episode too much but we missed them all. And I was reading on like a government website that the there's four days that you legally can have your own fireworks. Victoria Day 10 of the day, Diwali and New Year's Eve Preston Meyer  09:21Hmm there's there's so much of what is generally called white privilege in North American laws where you know, white holidays get actual legal designations and everything else is just extra. But it's nice to see Diwali get some special needed status and I Katie Dooley  09:42want to go to the Diwali for next year. Yeah. Cuz I'm sad we missed it. Preston Meyer  09:48What so we have the fireworks early. Katie Dooley  09:51No fireworks will be on Diwali on the fourth. Just all the celebrations are still like all the community celebrations at The mall down the street. They had a Diwali fair and that was whatever the 16th to 17th that weekend. Preston Meyer  10:08So I feel like your Diwali fair would be incomplete without fireworks. Katie Dooley  10:11I mean, maybe they had like official, not private fireworks. But those were the only four days for like private fireworks. Preston Meyer  10:18Except as long as it's not something like the government screwed up when you're allowed to have fireworks, so they switched, you know, this Katie Dooley  10:25was like a community celebration. And if you want private fireworks, you can still do it on November 4. Preston Meyer  10:31Except, that's better news than I thought it was. Katie Dooley  10:36Day four will vary from lobbying, everything will vary from person to person and region to region. But I found it as often to dedicate often dedicated to worshipping tools of work. So the example they gave us, the businessman with their Ledger's, or Katie and Preston celebrating their audio gear, Preston Meyer  10:58it makes good sense. I mean, it's, it's an odd flavor for the average Christian, but for somebody who is just grateful for the things that they have the let them do the work that brings in their money. That makes perfect sense. Katie Dooley  11:13I think this also relates to your dharma, right, your purpose on the planet, and you know, being having some gratitude for that. Exactly. Which is probably a good thing, I think. So. It's also the first day of the new year, so people will also often visit with family, and friends and relatives, I imagine they would have done so a little bit on the day before. But again, if you need a Christian alternative, it's like Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day, we see tons of family on those two days, so great. And day five, it's about sibling relationships. So sisters will pray for the well being of their brothers and brothers will visit their married sisters. So it's about sibling relationships on day five. Preston Meyer  12:00Yeah, I think it's important to encourage visitation, especially in parts of the world where the tradition is that you don't see some parts of your family as often as others. Katie Dooley  12:11It's also nice, you know, and we're both at this stage of life where, you know, we make the effort to go to our parents, but when you're married and your spouse has parents, then it might not all coincide with your siblings. Right, right. It's, you know, Preston Meyer  12:28yeah, my, of all of my siblings. I've been to a couple of their homes in the last 10 years. And not terribly often, especially compared to how often I've been to St. My mom's house. So I can definitely understand the the need to make this solid tradition like that. It's nice. And it, like we said before, it has a strong Thanksgiving flavor. And as Thanksgiving is kind of around this time in America, and about a month ago here in Canada, this idea of Thanksgiving has been talked about a whole bunch and everyone seems to think that Thanksgiving is super racist. And I keep correcting them know, Columbus Day is super racist. But Thanksgiving is the oldest religious festival on planet. Yeah, it's tightly connected to the harvest, and gratitude to whatever God is connected to the harvest. For all of the things that keep us alive for the year. Katie Dooley  13:34I learned this year that Canadian Thanksgiving is linked to the date they found the Northwest Passage. That's because they had to pick something so they kind of went Preston Meyer  13:45well for years and years and years. Thanksgiving moved around it from year to year, based on whatever the government said, Hey. Yeah, and it was always thanksgiving for a specific thing, as a unifying national thing. Oh, that's kind of cool, too. And then we picked a day and stopped having the government say, hey, we want to be thankful for this one thing, which I understand why people would complain about the government saying, hey, you need to be thankful for this. But it's also nice to have a unified nation in that one thing for that one day, Katie Dooley  14:24even if it's just for a moment. Yeah. Preston Meyer  14:27So during this Thanksgiving feeling Festival of Lights, Diwali celebration, prayers are popularly offered to Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. Though it's such a huge population of Hindus and their variety of gods, you can find people who associate Diwali with one of maybe a dozen gods. It's kind of diverse, Katie Dooley  14:53like a very violent Yes, don't fight a Hindu person. If they say they celebrate a different god on Diwali just because you heard, say Lakshmi on the holy watermelon, but not only watermelon pumpkin sad, don't Preston Meyer  15:11do that. Anytime you want to tell another person you believe this thing. You're probably wrong. Katie Dooley  15:19haven't said in a long time, though, just don't be a dick. Right. Good reminder. So I wrote this thinking I was so clever. So Lakshmi is a bit of a magpie. And so that's part of the reason at the Festival of Lights is that she likes bright lights. And if you catch her attention with your lanterns, then you will receive her blessing. Sure. Also, I found this post, Preston's review. She also only enters clean homes, which is part of the cleaning ritual on the first day. And I was just thinking, like, from a historical perspective, right, the Vedic religion is 1000s and 1000s of years old. This probably came from like encouraging general hygiene and health in your space, Preston Meyer  16:12I think that's a pretty good policy one way or the other. Also a great way to start the new year. Right. Katie Dooley  16:18So anyway, that's when I learned a little bit extra but Lakshmi for you, right Preston Meyer  16:23here, we just call it spring, spring cleaning, because we have our new year, a little later. Katie Dooley  16:28And we all know it's too old to open any windows in January. It's Preston Meyer  16:32a thing we desperately need. All right. And there's also offerings of food that are left out for the gods, which I want to say, runs the danger of cluttering your home and making the house not exactly what Lakshmi or whatever, God, you're inviting, making them uncomfortable. But basically, don't be a dummy and keep a tidy house and don't leave food everywhere. Yeah, that's Katie Dooley  17:03Indian slob. It's like leave a plate out for election Preston Meyer  17:06like Santa Claus. Like Santa Claus, right? Katie Dooley  17:10Yeah. Perfect analogy. Preston Meyer  17:13I mean, it's not great. But we started off with this is like Christmas in a couple of ways. And this is one of those ways. Katie Dooley  17:22And then my next point starts with the words just like Christmas. So people, just like Christmas, people update their homes in the wardrobe to exchange gifts and have parties leading up to Diwali. It's, it's really not that foreign to us. Right? If you're wondering what your South Asian neighbors are doing in the next few weeks, guess what they did last week, by the time this comes out. They're just having early Christmas, right? Preston Meyer  17:54Or early Hanukkah, whatever you're familiar Katie Dooley  17:57with whatever you're familiar with is Preston Meyer  18:01something that's pretty common to my experience of Christmas and Hanukkah, is there is usually some gambling that happens over Diwali as a just a nice social thing that people do together. So usually, it's card games when related to duallie. Kind of like the scratch off tickets that somebody's going to put in your stocking. Katie Dooley  18:24I love getting those. Preston Meyer  18:27Or the dreidel that's common in Hanukkah. So it's a good time for people to just have fun and when adults have fun it seems like often gambling is involved. Katie Dooley  18:42So Brian, we'll decide if we keep this in the episode but you know he's terrible luck with basically every board game yeah. Our audio guy slash my husband has terrible luck with that report came in when Christmas we were coming to pick up his brother to go to the next family and they were all playing a game of remotely and they all just brought like a roll of nickels. So it was $2 everyone paid a nickel for everything so like no big investment. But there was some real money ended at the end. And so grandpa like but Brandon because we didn't bring in nickels. Bryant cleaned up and left with $15 Wow good deal considering a We didn't buy it at all. And like people only pay $2 Each if we clean house. That's great. Preston Meyer  19:32Did Grandpa asked for his two dogs didn't grab Katie Dooley  19:35it. Just let us take all the money. Preston Meyer  19:38That's that's some some good spirits Katie Dooley  19:42will be gas money when you're traversing the country for Christmas was great. Preston. What are we celebrating on Diwali? Preston Meyer  19:52I mean, there's a lot but there's generally broadly speaking from one group to the next there's Usually the steam of triumph of good over evil. Most religious holidays have a little bit of this flavor. And it's leaned into pretty heavily in the stories that get told over Diwali. And there's a lot of different stories depending on your local tradition and religious affiliation, of course, but many who observed the tradition anchor their celebration to the story of Lord Rama. So I've made some point notes here, so I can keep myself on track and drag this out way too long, for story time, but if you want to dig into the story of Lord Rama later on, and really enjoy the depth and the details of it, it's actually pretty good story. But basically, here's the gist of it. The king of Ionia had three wives and several daughters, but He really really wanted a son. So he offered a sacrifice, and his wish was granted, each of his wives had a son or two, each of whom received a bit of Vishnu his power because Vishnu needed to defeat the demon Ravana as a mortal, rather than in his divine character, so that he could keep Ravana from oppressing the gods. The dynamic that we see here in the Hindu pantheon is a lot different than we see in a lot of other theological models. Where this is possible, the demon can oppress swathes of gods, and this is a problem but apparently, he can be defeated by a mortal with a little bit of divine help. Kind of a rock, paper Scissors thing, I guess. I don't know. So one of the sons Rama, when he was 16, somebody came to the royal court to to get help against the demons who were interfering with sacrifices. And Rama was chosen as champion to lead the fight against these demons. And his brother Lakshmana tagged along, kind of like Frodo and Sam dill. No. is a very loyal brothers kind of cute, and he sticks with them all the way through the story. Happens Lux mana is there with Rama? Katie Dooley  22:19And actually, before you even said the salmon Frodo and we were talking about the mortal defeating the demon I was thinking of a Oh, when I am no man, right? That's what I thought of so basically, Lord of the Rings, guys, Preston Meyer  22:32except way older. Katie Dooley  22:34So are the rings stole? It is what I'm hearing. Preston Meyer  22:38I mean, when you have a dude trying to build a mythology for England, and like that's actually his goal. He's going to be borrowing elements of stories from all over the place that really work. Katie Dooley  22:51We should do an episode on that. Sure. Preston Meyer  22:55Amen. All right. So we've got Rama, Frodo and Laksmana. Sam. So their adventure has been vanquished an awful lot of demons. But ROM has real show of power was in the court of Janaka. The king of myth Mithila Janaka found his baby daughter in the ground while plowing it. Like, under the ground. She's the potato. Kinda Yeah, but she's supposed to be beautiful. Katie Dooley  23:24She's a beautiful, beautiful potato. Preston Meyer  23:28And the way it's described is so weird, like, tearing the ground apart. She's She was in the ground. Now like, Oh, I'm working and found a baby sitting in the grass. No, like a potato, like a potato. I'm following you. It's so weird. But that's the story. So he finds this girl and decides to take her home named her Sita. And when she was old enough to marry, he announced to the world that if a man could lift the heavy bow that had been presented to his family by Shiva generations earlier, he could marry Sita. Rama not only lifted the bow, but broke the string when he tried to draw it. Katie Dooley  24:09Ooh, so strong. Preston Meyer  24:11He's so strong. So Rama and his brothers get to marry the daughters of King Janaka. So, things get pretty nice for him. Yeah. Pretty good. Yeah. So when Cetus father is ready to step down as king. He wants Rama to take over he's earned it. But Rama stepmother calls in a favor from her husband, Roma's father, and has Rama and Sita exiled from the country for 14 years, so that her son Bharata can be king. And this is where the nation of India gets its real name burrata. Katie Dooley  24:47Interesting. Yeah, that's really cool. I thought Preston Meyer  24:51so. So ROM has wife and loyal brother, follow him into exile, know where they have even more epic adventure. through over the course of 14 years, including a great battle of wits and steel with the terrible God crushing demon Ravana, before Rama returns victorious to the kingdom of Ionia, which is promptly offered to him again. So Diwali in, in some traditions celebrates this triumphant return, in addition to the destruction of Ravana. That's a really great story, right? And it's so much better when it's not just summarized in five minutes. Katie Dooley  25:30Yeah, I can see it sitting by the Diwali fireplace and listening to that story, right? Preston Meyer  25:37Yeah. It's some good fun. And there's alternate versions of the story, of course, because the story has been told for so long, and has been told for so long before literacy was common. So, variation happens. The Buddhist version for the handful of Buddhists that find the story important. They call Rama, Rama Pandita. And he is said to be the previous incarnation of Gautama Buddha. Katie Dooley  26:11Oh, interesting. So pre Buddhism, Preston Meyer  26:13right? Oh, I like that. Yeah. When Rama goes into exile, he actually is exiled to the Himalayas, in the Buddhist version of the story. And so that connects to that little part of the world really nicely. And the weird thing is that the Buddhist version of the story doesn't actually include any war with Ravana, or any mention of the demon crushing, or the god crushing demon Ravana. But other Buddhist literature does talk about him. So it's kind of odd that he is left out of this story. Katie Dooley  26:49I have a question that is gonna take us a step back, but it just came to my head. Where can mean and our listeners find the full story of Rama? Or do you find it? Preston Meyer  27:03Yeah, the story of Rama is called Rama, Jana. And it's actually like the Lord of the Rings. There's a book one, book two book, three business, that kind of thing. All right. It's a few books that build up this one huge epic to the Katie Dooley  27:18culminating with the defeat of Ravana. Yeah, cool. Awesome. All right. I will let you continue with the other Diwali. historical Preston Meyer  27:30stuff. All right. In the Jain tradition, we haven't really explored Jainism a lot, but it's basically a slightly newer branch of the Vedic religion. That's not so tightly tied to the Vedas. Really, it's, it looks an awful lot like Hinduism, but it's just a little bit different. We will have to take some time to explore that a Katie Dooley  27:57little later. I and we I have some earmarked for next year. So Preston Meyer  28:01in the Jain tradition, Rama is unwilling to kill so it's actually his brother Lakshmana, who kills Ravana Katie Dooley  28:08well, so real Sam hero. Yeah. Preston Meyer  28:12It's kind of great. This version also has Rama renounced the kingdom to become a monk who goes on to achieve moksha while both his brother and Nirvana go to Hell, no. Katie Dooley  28:23Yeah. Laksmana. That makes me really upset, right? Imagine Preston Meyer  28:29a world where it just seems everyone just accepts that Sam and Sol Ron get to be neighbors free turn. No, Katie Dooley  28:38I don't like that. Preston Meyer  28:40There's good news. Okay. Hell isn't forever. Oh, good. So, there's in the Jane tradition, there's still that cycle of resurrection reincarnation, rather. And so the, the tradition around these two is that they are both, even in the story predicted to come back as even greater righteous people. So even Ravana will be reborn as a righteous man and serve as an omniscient teacher for James everywhere, kind of like the next big savior. But not the next one. But sometime in the future. That's kind of Katie Dooley  29:21that's another happy ending right to be celebrated. Right? during Diwali. Yeah. Okay. Preston Meyer  29:28Because even these these terrible fingers can see the light, be enlightened and achieve moksha and just be everything that we would have hoped that their former selves would have been. Yeah. So lights Katie Dooley  29:46light, good defeating evil. Yeah. Preston Meyer  29:51And of course, like I said before, this these stories predate common literacy. So from little group to little group you will see some variation in the story, Katie Dooley  30:02especially something this old. Yeah. And with such a right a big population of Hindus and obviously jeans and Jains and Buddhists around the world. Yeah. Just like other religious holiday traditions vary from person to person. Yeah, Preston Meyer  30:20your mileage may vary. Katie Dooley  30:25Another story, and we don't have as many as many details on this as we do with the Rama story, but it is commonly told in India is about a battle between Krishna who is an avatar of Vishnu and the Demon King NERICA Surah after Krishna is victory, he freed 16,000 young girls so another great reason that celebrate right Preston Meyer  30:48let's sounds like a terrible situation. Definitely a great victory. As we mentioned before, Diwali is commonly associated with Lakshmi that the bite of Vishnu and some traditions have Diwali as the time of her birth in the cosmic ocean of milk. Which sounds really weird when you first hear it, and then you realize that you know, the biggest thing in our night sky is the Milky Way. That's literally how we named the galaxy is the milky bit. Katie Dooley  31:20A milky bit. Preston Meyer  31:24So that's as much as it sounds weird when you first hear it. It's like, That's literally how every ancient people looked up at this guy. St. Katie Dooley  31:32Bernard would be all over that, Preston Meyer  31:34right? Gotta love St. Bernard. While her story isn't exactly as epic as Ramas after overcoming obstacles, Lakshmi goes on to marry Vishnu on this anniversary, that is commemorated by the Diwali that we now know. Katie Dooley  31:57Another God that can appear is actually Callie so for some Diwali reminds the faithful of the victorious Kelly, the mother of all living beings and master of time and death. She is said to destroy evil to protect the good and innocent, since the Festival of Lights is a celebration of all that is good that the connection makes sense, even without there being this big epic story, like the Ramayana, right? Preston Meyer  32:23I like it. Saraswathi is also revered at this time because of her gifts of knowledge and writing, that are essential to victory over ignorance. And her gift of music is particularly germane to any good celebration. So, like I mentioned before, the flavor of Thanksgiving is present as some of the prayers are offered to Kuvera the God of wealth, but he is also a protector who assists in the triumph of knowledge and good over ignorance and evil. Katie Dooley  32:56In Jainism, Diwali also celebrates the final death of Mahavira, a savior and a teacher as he achieved nirvana. So that's also something. Not everyone achieves nirvana. So Preston Meyer  33:13some people get stuck here for a long, long time. Katie Dooley  33:16There'll be me and we didn't talk much about a bit Sikhs also recognize Diwali. I imagine a lot of this is regional influence, but they celebrate the day celebrate is the day that the city of Amritsar was founded. And later the day, Guru Hargobind, was released from prison and arrived at the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Preston Meyer  33:43So it's not just Hindus, but a solid civic thing that has an awful lot of religious connotations for all kinds of people for a whole bunch of different reasons. Katie Dooley  33:57Yeah, it's one of those things that you really get to put your own meaning on, because it does sort of fall into this Civic almost secular all holiday in India. Where again, you the core belief, the core celebration is there. Yeah, you just put your own spin on it, like we celebrate Christmas, but we're very vocal about not being Christian. But the core of you know, all that is good and lovely in the world. We can get behind and food. Preston Meyer  34:31You're already collecting your Christmas stuff to know Katie Dooley  34:33that I bought it while I was on holidays. I just haven't put it away. And now it doesn't make sense to put away don't have any final thoughts, conclusions for Diwali? And let's face in Hinduism. Preston Meyer  34:57As far as I'm able to tell it's a big deal. For good reason, great stories are told, and great time is shared with family. And fireworks. Any holiday with fireworks is going to be some fun. Katie Dooley  35:12And gambling, fireworks gambling good food. What else do you need? Preston Meyer  35:19Me music but they're very good solid. Katie Dooley  35:25And their beats would slap way more than our Christmas hymns. For sure. Preston Meyer  35:29I went 20 years without being aware of Indian music why? Know how that happened? And then I started hanging out with a girl who isn't from India, but just really liked Indian guys and some music with her. Fair and some of it slaps Yeah, Katie Dooley  35:50no, it's great. As we mentioned, we're recording just before Diwali. And by the time this is published, it will be after Diwali. So, unfortunately, not this year, but I strongly encourage you and me and Preston next year to go check out some of your community events. There will absolutely you know, COVID notwithstanding, there will absolutely be public events for Diwali. So you don't need to eat if you're not comfortable going to a temple or inviting yourself over to your neighbor's house. There will absolutely be public celebrations that you know, just a great way to check it out and have an extra holiday in your year. Yes, it'd be my final thoughts. Preston Meyer  36:31I think that we're doing a pretty kick ass job of celebrating Diwali being such as it is the conquest of knowledge over ignorance. Since that's exactly the motive behind our show. Katie Dooley  36:47I I love it. We should get some Indian food next week and record our next episode. I like all right. Preston Meyer  36:57All right. Before we go, Katie Dooley  36:58I was like what's next? Oh, want Preston Meyer  37:01to thank everybody for listening to us, especially in this busy holiday season that we're creeping up into. We have all kinds of social media that you can follow us on we got Facebook Instagram, we got Discord server that we're having some good fun on. And we also have a Patreon that we would love to get your support. Katie Dooley  37:25And, and holiday season Preston you can't forget our Spreadshirt where you can buy some sick holy watermelon merch to give for Diwali. Or Hanukkah or Christmas or Kwanzaa. Preston Meyer  37:39whatever occasion you can find to give a gift Katie Dooley  37:43from the holy watermelon podcast. You should do it. Just a hard sell right there. I'm such a bad salesperson hard sell buy our stuff. Preston Meyer  37:51I like alright. Katie Dooley  37:55Peace be with you. By the late Middle Ages Preston Meyer  38:09Hey, what are you still doing here? Well, your commitment will be rewarded. We're having a giveaway. Thanks to lovely folks at Blackbird farm and apothecary. We have a pair of very sexy holy watermelon tumblers and coasters. Perfect for the holiday season. All you need to do is check out the posts on our Instagram and Facebook. Follow us like the post and tag a friend and one entry per tag. It will be great. The winner will be announced December 10 2021. Be sure to check out our friends at Blackbird farm and apothecary on Facebook.