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LONDON, U.K. October 4, 2003: A cake in the form of a mini football pitch, hip henna tattoos to accessorize Brit-Indian costume chic, dozens of advertisements for ‘Diwali-dinner-and-dance’ evenings, thousands of twinkling tea lights. Six-hundred people meeting every night during Navaratri in Bradford, U.K. to dance the garba. An English town hall, ceremonially ‘switching on’ its Diwali lights and a Guinness Book of Records entry for the biggest, post-Diwali Annakut Utsav anywhere in the world. Welcome to the Dusshera-Diwali season, part of the range of Britain’s newly-designated multi-cultural “autumn festivals.” As with expatriate communities everywhere, the theme is that ultimate paradox — traditional-contemporary. And it comes with a quick muttered prayer for the two festivals conveniently to fall on a weekend. The mood is upbeat, as Britain’s 1.8 million Indians are borne along on a rising tide of Western interest in Bollywood and Pashmina shawls. For Girish Patel, festival organizer at London’s Swaminarayan temple, the biggest Hindu temple in England, the Diwali countdown is his busiest time. And with every year it seems to be getting busier. “From now, till Diwali, I spend every evening with 60 or 70 people, including my family in the temple, making up 60,000 boxes of prasad to be given to those who visit the temple on Diwali,” Patel tells STOI. In a thrifty token of India, the plastic prasad boxes and gift calendars are imported from India, along with tons of fireworks from China.

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