What Diwali Decor Looks Like for 7 South Asian Creatives
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Photo: Poyenchen
Across the world and across generations, South Asian spiritualities have inspired a move toward new age wellness cultures. Western takes on Hinduism and Buddhism have become heavily commodified with messages of mindfulness losing translation as brands capitalize on selling what it means to “be well.” Furthermore, the stylistic take on many of these Westernized spiritualities prioritizes a minimalist aesthetic—think neutral tones, birch, and rattan. In the West, the spiritualities appropriated from the Global South become whitewashed and digestible. Freeing your mind is now associated with blank and empty spaces.
In reality, this aesthetic movement has an appropriated spirituality that is originally extremely maximalist. South Asia is a vibrant place full of contrasting patterns, colliding colors, and mismatched textures. Spirituality is internalized, not intellectualized. Joyful expression is externalized through decoration and design that maximizes a sensory experience, honoring the brilliant experience of life. The celebration of Diwali epitomizes all of this.
Over the weekend, many South Asian communities will gather to celebrate what is commonly known as Diwali or Deepavali, the festival of lights. Around the world families and friends gather in varying customs for a celebration that ritualizes the triumph of good over evil. South Asia is a region of vastly distinct dialects, ethnicities, and traditions. Diwali highlights the subcontinent’s diversities, drawing on a range of religious events, archetypes, and deities. From the commemoration of King Rama’s return to his kingdom after defeating Ravana to the reverence of Lakshmi, the goddess of abundance and prosperity, various sects of Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Buddhism commune in ceremony. Perhaps this lack of homogeneity is what has allowed the region’s stylistic choices to maintain as dynamically as they do.
Always coinciding with a new moon, the five-day-long festival brings together prayers, food, and fireworks, often taking days to weeks to prepare for. One thing is for certain in all observing communities: The lively adornment of sacred spaces, including the home and one’s altar, is a big part of this celebration. Living rooms and kitchens become the hub for festive feasting, draped in a multicolor of light and sound. Despite being miles away from their ancestral lands, diasporic South Asians continue to uphold this tradition across borders at a time where it feels paramount to cherish moments of communal gratitude. This year, the main Diwali festivity falls on Sunday, November 12.
We spoke to three South Asian creatives to learn more about their Diwali decor essentials and how to emulate a space that is true to its tradition when hosting in your own home. What you’ll notice is that all of them share a common thread of personalizing festivities with objects attached to specific moments and memories. Curbing the commodification of spirituality then becomes about a genuine and true understanding of where the practice comes from and why it’s maintained. In that way, meaningful Diwali decor cannot be bought or sold. Instead, traditions can be developed over time, ebbing and flowing with the seasons of life. Color is crucial, though!
Tarini Sethi, artist
Will be celebrating Diwali this year with: Immediate family and close friends.
New Delhi–based artist Tarini Sethi has celebrated every Diwali in India’s capital. “Every year, I make sure I stay in the city and don’t travel,” she writes over Whatsapp. “The city smells different and feels different.” Coming back to the heart of the celebration as a time for what means the most, Tarini expresses how the holiday has allowed her to be in the present moment. “As I grow older, I want to be with my loved ones on Diwali, decorating our homes, wearing our most colorful saris, eating good home-cooked food.” Sethi’s decor essential for Diwali is a streamer of lights.
Raveena Aurora, singer and songwriter
Will be celebrating Diwali this year with: Her touring party and Tinashe’s team as she supports the Grammy winner on her North American tour.
If soulful and soothing music combined with deep meditation is of interest, there is a chance you are already familiar with the work of Raveena. The “Desi-futurist” musician has developed an international following around her hypnotic tunes and sensual style. Her Diwali decor essential is Masala dabba. Growing up celebrating the holiday with her family, Raveena particularly cherishes the visceral feeling of enchantment around Diwali. “I have a really warm fuzzy feeling of my parents putting string lights on the rhododendron bush near our house. I can feel that feeling on my skin, the moment before the first doorbell when my parents put on music to set the mood.” The artist in particular notes the memory of “everyone emerging from their rooms in extravagant golds and pinks and red.”
A quick peek through her discography reveals Raveena’s ability to meld both classical and contemporary, with blends of traditional Indian sonic and visual languages and a modern practice of energy and healing work. Raveena is not afraid of embracing the maximal aesthetic that she comes from, merging it with her art form. She explains, “for me and for Diwali, color is born from the intention and inspiration of connection to spirit or god. The colors always feel beautiful and in harmony with each other.”
As her attunement to a holistic connection to mind, body, and spirit has deepened, so has her experience with Diwali as a celebration. The adorning of candles are more meaningful to Raveena now: “I do a lot of candle magic now, so working with candles and light has more significance.”
Sheena Sood, founder of Abacaxi NYC
Will be celebrating Diwali this year with: Her partner and a few friends.
As Brooklyn-based textile designer and artist Sheena Sood’s spiritual practice through breath work and meditation has evolved, so too has her reverence for Diwali. The creation of a rangoli has become a tradition for Sheena, and she often invites friends and family over to participate in their making. Known by many other names across the subcontinent including the kolam, or mugu, a rangoli is an art form in which colored powder and petals are used to create intricate patterns on tabletops and floors.
“I love the ephemerality of them and not just the method of making them, but of sweeping them up or watching them disintegrate too,” Sood says. “The act of making rangolis for me connects my creativity, love for color, and spiritual practice. I start in the center and keep adding and create the motifs as I go, depending on the space around me and the materials I have.”
Sood also reflects on her her mother “always told me Diwali is a time to get something new for the house,” beyond decoration, the practice of embellishing the home with a rangoli during Diwali is often done as a way to commemorate revitalization and abundance.” Her most essential decor item for celebrating the holiday is ceramic or copper diyas. While musing on the personal sacredness of Diwali rangolis, Sood recalls how “color is truly one of the biggest themes throughout my work, life, home, and personal style and essence. It’s sort of the thread that brings together all of my artwork and my fashion and design work.”
Somnath Bhatt, designer, artist and writer.
Will be celebrating Diwali this year with: Their neighbor Malika Verma, of border&fall, on Diwali eve; catching up with his family in India the morning of.
True to his drawings—kaleidoscopes of alternate ways of being—prolific multihyphenate Somnath Bhatt’s practice of Diwali embraces “varied intensities and perspectives instead of a single authoritative voice,” underpinning the beautifully diverse cultures that make up the fabric of India. Bhatt’s essentials consist of his father’s impromptu sculptural arrangements, fresh linens, and floral displays. Another essential family dish, prepared in Somnath’s mother’s family for generations, is a sweet dish made from millet called dudhiyo bajro. “Most Indian holidays have distinct regional and local variations, and I particularly love discovering those nuances,” he shares.
In urban Gujarati towns, like the one where Bhatt’s family is from, the obscure tradition of sabras is continued, in which young adults spread salt on the morning after Diwali. Alluding to the metaphor of adding flavor, beginning the new year with a pinch of salt enhances the delight of the year to come.
Bhatt was born two days after Diwali, known as Bhai Bij according to the Gujarati calendar. His own personal celebration of Diwali has thus become about tying up loose ends and winding up the year that has passed. “It is about placing small lamps in the darkest corners of oneself and the path around in a moonless night,” he adds. As the state of India has been experiencing a continual uprising in fascist movements, particularly around Hindu dominancy, he reflects on his first memory of celebrating Diwali with his mother and grandmother, union organizers who celebrated the holiday in solidarity with women comrades reciting an interfaith prayer and singing the Gujarati translation of “Solidarity Forever.”
Despite authoritarian stances that attempt to hijack and flatten the celebration into one specific version (negating the multitude of ethnicities, religions, and cultures of India in the process), Bhatt speaks to the aesthetic quality of his work in response to his upbringing: “My drawings arise from constellations of disparate forms and unexpected nearness. For me, in contrast to a monolith, the truly mythic is a pathway to discomfort and engaging with the unknown in a beautiful way.”
Beyond one specific aesthetic tradition, Bhatt is interested in fettling the world we have instead of resuscitating a bygone one. The artist’s practice of the festival of light is truly a commemoration of newness, as he offers, “may the inner light help us fight the fascism within us and in the world around us.”
Shriya Samavai, designer and founder of Samavai
Will be celebrating Deepavali this year with: Their cousin and partner in Los Angeles.
Shriya Samavai is a Tamil multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. For Samavai, Diwali is more accurately known as Deepavali, true the Tamil name of the holiday. Growing up in West Lafayette, Indiana, for Samavai the festivity “feels like the South Asian Christmas.” “You get time off and get presents,” they say. In that way, Deepavali trascends religion and has become a cultural celebration.
This year, Samavai will be observing their Thalai Deepavali, the first Deepavali celebration after a couple is married. As the founder of a recycled fashion brand that is heavily inspired by the rich patterns and intricately designed textiles of their elders, Deepavali is a time for Samavai to commemorate the vibrant aesthetic quality of their South Asian heritage.
The adornment of a kolam in front of one’s home is a customary tradition that has influenced Samavai’s self-titled label. A kolam is the combination of rice flour and water, sometimes colored, sprinkled in geometric shapes in front of the doorstep. Kolams are a kaleidoscope of lines and colors and are said to bring prosperity, aligning with Samavai’s observation of Deepavali as a time to honor the goddess Lakshmi. “Of course, as it is the festival of lights, candles and lamps are the easiest way to create a space that emulates the spirit of Deepavali,” Samavai shares. “I make sure to pull out my grandmother’s kuthu villaku.”
They go on to highlight the importance of integrating traditional motifs in their contemporary celebration. A kuthu villaku is an oil lamp common in households throughout South India and northern Sri Lanka. Samavai’s stylistic commemoration of Deepavali quintessentially brings together new and old to create something beautiful in the present.
Aishwarya Iyer, founder and CEO of Brightland
Will be celebrating Deepavali this year with: Quiet mantras that reiterate the celebration of Deepavali inwards.
Chennai-born Aishwarya Iyer grew up going to Deepavali parties hosted by family friends in her hometown of Houston. Now based in Los Angeles, she reminisces on Deepavali as “a time to eat a lot of sweets and wear new clothes.” Over time, Iyer’s practice of Deepavali has evolved as she’s honed in on what her own personal journey to her spiritual connection is.
“The light is not just around us, it’s also in us,” she explains. “The celebration of the light that exists in all spaces, externally and internally, is profound. The minute that became clear to me, I found a peace and clarity that made all the trappings associated with Deepavali fade away.”
Iyer alludes to the deep, lived connection many diasporic folks have to the embedded practice of compassion and unity inherent in the teachings of South Asian spiritualities. Her work with Brightland, a line of consciously made Californian olive oils and vinegars, fully embodies this mission. “Brightland as a brand is so bright and colorful, it communicates that light that I believe in,” she adds.
Last year, the brand released the Mini Artist Series as a tribute to the boxes of sweets she would see lining the dinner tables at Deepavali celebrations as a child. Lotus-printed, gold-leafed boxes of sweets known as mithai are a familiar sight at many Deepavali celebrations. As Iyer further explains, “Deepavali now is about finding my own way. Reminding myself of what’s been inviting and warm. Basing my celebrations around a singular memory.”
Michelle Ranavat, founder of Ranavat Skincare
Will be celebrating Diwali this year with: Her broader community, beyond her South Asian friends and family.
For Michelle Ranavat, curbing the commercialization of Diwali means coming back to the purity of the celebration. The remembrance of Diwali as the honoring of good over evil is a priority. “Growing up, we spent time together as a family reflecting on the near year ahead and filling our minds and hearts with hope for the future,” Ranavat shares.
Ranavat grew up in Wisconsin, where Diwali was a lesser-known festivity, celebrated privately within the South Asian community. Now, she speaks with gratitude and joy at her ability to share it with her American friends at large. In particular, Ranavat shares her excitement at experiencing the sensual quality of the celebration. Any Diwali function cherishing prosperity, expansion and growth is sure to be full of fresh flowers, highlighting the beauty of nature and its abundance.
Marigold floral garlands; roses in red, pink, and white; carnations; and mums are scattered across the dining table and altar. Both are spaces where people come together in sacred celebration. This year, her skincare brand released the Sacred Jasmine Candle as an ode to the uplifting scent that commonly fills streets in South Asia, because no tablescape is complete without a candle or two. “Candles and scent create such a warm and welcoming vibe and it fills our home with hope,” Michelle adds.
Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
