Culture Facts

Divali is a festival of lights that marks the start of the Hindu New Year.  The Hindu community celebrates this event on the 15th day of the Kartika month, and it will take place on 7th November this year.

It has many different spellings such as Diwali and Deepavali.

Rangoli decorations, such as the one shown above, are extremely popular during Diwali and are made using coloured powder or sand.

The Festival of Lights honours Rama-chandra, who was the seventh avatar (incarnation of the god Vishnu).  The story told is that Rama returned to his people after 14 years of exile on this day.  Whilst he was away he was said to have fought and won against the demons and the demon king, Ravana. 

To celebrate Rama-chandra victory over evil, the people lit their houses to show that light beat darkness.

Also, the goddess of happiness and good fortune, named Lakshmi, is celebrated on this day. She is believed to roam the Earth and enter homes that are pure, clean, and bright. This festival significance is to show the spiritual meaning of an “awareness of an inner light”.

Lamps and fireworks are lit and homes are spring cleaned to celebrate this event, along with sweets, savouries and Divali treats and a gathering of friends and family.

The Hindu community dress in their traditional dress, with the women wearing jewellery and some have Mehendi, a form of henna decoration, painted on their palms.

The beginning of the first Oktoberfest took place on 12th October 1810 in Munich, Germany to celebrate the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig, later to become King Ludwig I to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen.

All Munich citizens were asked to join in the celebrations at a festivity to be held in a field just outside the city gates and in honour of the newly wed princess it was named Theresienwiese (Theresia’s fields). The celebrations ended with a horse race.

In 1811, as well as the horse races an Agricultural Show was introduced, designed to boost Bavarian agriculture. The horse races, which were the oldest – and at one time – the most popular event of the festival are no longer held today. But the Agricultural Show is still held every three years during the Oktoberfest on the southern part of the festival grounds.

In the first few decades, there wasn’t a huge amount of amusements available but then in 1818, a carousel and two swings were set up.

To quench the thirst of all the vistitors to this festival various small beer stands were erected with different ales and alcohol available.

In 1896 the beer stands were replaced by beer tents and halls instead and were set up by local landlords, whilst the rest of the festival fields were a funfair. By now there was a range of carousels and other fairground rides continued to come to the site in Germany.

Today, Munich’s Oktoberfest is the largest festival of it’s kind in the world, varying the different ales, beers and largers on an international level in keeping with the 20th century.

At the foot of the Bavaria Statue, adjacent to the Huge Oktoberfest grounds there are still fairground rides like the carousels, roller coasters and lots of other hair raising rides for all ages of visitors to enjoy.

The festivities follow a program of events, which includes the Grand Entry of the Oktoberfest Landlords and Breweries, the Costume and Riflemen’s Parade, and a concert involving brass bands representing the “Wiesn”.

The Oktoberfest celebrated its 200th Anniversery in 2010, and it is only during Wars and a cholera epidemic that have briefely interrupted the yearly beer celebration.