Inaugural event aims to bring significant India celebration to Moncton

Organizers were busying setting up for the first Ganga Aarti and Sahasra Deepostav celebration in Moncton, N.B., on Sunday afternoon.

Vish Akkaladevi, one of the organizers, say the idea was to combine two significant celebrations from India into one.

“Ganga Aarti is normally celebrated every day to the Ganga river in Ganges. Normally every day a million people will attend that and here I’m expecting 1,000,” he said.

“The other is a Sahasra Deepostav… it is part of a celebration of post Diwali.”

The hope was to light a thousand lights to help symbolize the triumph of light over darkness and create an atmosphere of joy, hope and unity.

“When you read it in a book, you are not able to estimate how it’s going to be, the beauty of it, so when you see it that makes a difference and this is something where people can come and meet with Indians and learn our culture and we are able to explain our culture to them,” he said.

“It makes one evening where Canadians and Indians can enter together, they can enter the light.”

The goal is to continue to grow the celebration each year in the Greater Moncton area.

The celebration was originally scheduled for Saturday, but had to be postponed due to weather conditions.

Next year Akkaladevi says they might try to move it up to the end of October or the beginning of November for better weather conditions.

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