India Post News Service
The Covid-19 pandemic has overshadowed all celebrations, festivals, and holidays, but it did not prohibit Sacramento’s Indian Americans from celebrating the Diwali festival. Over 100 local Indian Americans joined Roseville, a suburban city of Sacramento in the California State of USA, on Sunday, November 8th at 6 PM, to celebrate Diwali 2020 in Quarantine Style. People dressed in traditional Indian clothes, with children and family waving, cheering, showcasing their cars with decorated lights depicted the spirit of the Diwali festivity. Many local Americans also joined the parade.
Diwali is the Hindu Festival of Lights, which is celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists (Indic tradition), and the festive spirit expressed by those of “any, all and no faith.” Diwali symbolizes the spiritual “victory of light over darkness, good over evil and knowledge over ignorance.”
Light is a metaphor for knowledge and consciousness. Sewa Sacramento chapter celebrated the first-ever Diwali Parade of Lights at Roseville. Despite the 100-year record of extreme cold weather, local Indian Americans came from Sacramento suburban cities including Elk Grove, Folsom, Orangevale, Rancho, Rocklin, and Roseville, with their vehicles decorated so beautifully and contributed to lifting the spirit of the local community.
Local Indian Americans had spent hours decorating their cars with colorful LEDs for Diwali and did a Diwali Car Parade with friends and neighbors at Roseville. So many local Americans who took photographs at the starting point, told organizers the decorations and lighting were so refreshing & certainly created positive vibes. Their thumbs-up to show their appreciation was fulfilling.
On this occasion, Sewa received more than 50 pounds of canned food donations via this Diwali food drive and donated the food collected to the local food bank. Sewa thanked local business Reliance Supermart for providing sweets to all the parade participants.
Parade Photos and Videos are available here: https://tinyurl.com/SacDiwali 
Sewa thanked Parade Lead Prabhakar Ji and Sacramento Chapter Lead Paresh Sinha Ji for working instrumentally to make Diwali Parade a successful event. Sewa advises readers to visit the following Facebook page to read more about the Sewa Sacramento chapter and its activities here: https://www.facebook.com/SewaSacUSA/
