Editorial October 2017

Posted on: October 2, 2017 by: Deshvidesh

Dear Readers,

First of all let me wish Happy Diwali to all of you and to all our Gujarati brothers sisters, Happy New year too! It’s that time of the year of Festivals, Family, and Food. Don’t forget the sweets – no festival is complete without these treats!

For the last few years, Aruna and I have been inviting all our friends who have young children on Diwali Day to our home to perform the Diwali Puja. The young children do puja while their parents sit back and watch. Our Pandit ji is an IT graduate Varun who not only performs a very authentic puja, but also explains the meaning of every ritual.

I hope you do not mind if I plug one of my books. Keeping in mind last year’s Diwali celebration at our home, I wrote a book We love Diwali, a children’s story book with pictures and a simple explanation of how Hindu, Jain and Sikh celebrate Diwali.

In India, unfortunately, family is not part of the festivals. These days, rather than celebrating festivals with Family, the trend is to go to an out of town vacation spot. And not even with the whole family, but just on their own. This major culture shift between Indians living in this country versus Indians living back home is very apparent.

I have mentioned this before, but we’ve see this upward trend in educating our children at Bal Vihar or children achieving top positions at spelling bee or young adults taking care of senior parents. I’m not the only one who has noticed this shift. Recently, I was watching a Bollywood film Beshumar Ishq. Similar to most Bollywood movies, this is also a love triangle. Half of the family members live in London and half live in Mumbai.

A major culture shift shows where London-born and raised Zumzum is more inclined with ancient Indian culture, where she prefers to visit the History of India in Rajasthan versus her Indian counterpart who wants to party in Goa.

Most of you who have read my column in the past know how passionate I feel about Hindu heritage and Indian culture in our youth so I can go and on on talking about those subjects, but let me stop here.

Finally, we hope all our readers in the Florida and Georgia region impacted by Hurricane Irma are safe and sound. Also, we’re sure most of you know the MyShadi Bridal Expo date changed to October 22 due to Hurricane Irma. We apologize any inconvenience caused. We hope to see you in Orlando then!

Raj Shah

Managing Editor

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