Post to be updated with Diwali photos
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Cake boxes for sharing with friends/ relatives:
Quincaillerie Pandoo, Triolet Video
The whole Flickr Set is Viewable by clicking on here.
My favourite Diwali Song:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAlGqDM7T1M]
Furthermore, given that Diwali is to celebrate the arrival of Rama into Ayodhya after killing Demon Ravana, here is an interesting argument on Ravan:
Ravana was a powerful and very intelligent person who also a very good Veena player and composed Shiv Tandava Stotram. Because of the intensity of his prayers and ascetic meditation, of which this hymn was an example, Ravana received from Shiva the boon of indestructibility by all powers on heaven and earth — except by a human being. Disdaining the seeming weakness of humans, Ravana abducted the wife of Rama, Lord Vishnu incarnate.
He knew that Ram was Narayana (Lord Vishnu) himself, who had come in human form.However, since there was no other way for him to reach to Narayana, he had to cultivate wanton wickedness, violence and hatred, and invite Ram to kill him. Of course, this might be called a type of devotion that is stupid and infamous. But his inner aim was to cross the ocean of birth and death, through that act of self abnegation and surrender to Narayana.