Mark your calendars! On Friday October 21st we are celebrating Diwali – the Indian Festival of Lights – here at Juno House. Together with #JunoWoman Anjalina Chugani and Güngur Dance School, we are organizing a Bollywood Dance Class, because dancing is an essential part of Indian celebrations! Besides dancing, Diwali is all about enjoying together with your family & friends. So that’s exactly what we are doing! Our Cocktail Connoisseur Santi will prepare a sweet & spicy cocktail for the happy hour after!
For this blog series, we interviewed Anjalina and asked her to tell us a bit more about how Diwali is celebrated, the beautiful story behind Bollywood, what her favorite spices are and more! Happy reading.
If you’re Indian, you really can’t escape Bollywood. It is a family tradition. One watches a movie or goes to the cinema almost every weekend with your family. It is a big party, there is a lot of color, music, storylines and culture involved, that you become a part of. It forms a part of the cultural knit in your family. Bollywood is quite famous around the entire world, basically because the industry is even bigger than Hollywood nowadys. Can you imagine the population of India and the amount of movies they can produce on a monthly and weekly basis, it is quite impressive. Besides Hindi movies (which in the main language), Bollywood has movies in many other languages as well. The Indian actors are gaining fame in other parts of the world as well and across Hollywood too.
The colours, the clothes and the music are just divine!
As you might know, India is the world of spices. Specifally during festivals and celebrations we use sweet spices, because we like to put the sweetness in peoples mouths to celebrate unity and love. Such as cardemom, cinnamon, all spices that evoke happiness and laughter. Of course we like to put chilis in everything as well. And lastly, saffron is something we use frequently in our food too.
The national flower of India is the lotus. And it actually has quite a special meaning. It is one of those flowers everybody can associate themselves with, within some point or stage in their lives. The beauty of the lotus flower is that it grows in muddy waters, where there is dark and dirt. And for me personally it signifies that you can flourish and manifest things that are so beautiful, that can grow even from the darkness. And I think that is so special about this gorgeous flower. It is a flower of peace and tranquility. I even have a little tattoo dedicated to it!
Diwali is celebrated with a lot of light and color, it is known as the festival of lights. It is also considered the celebration of good over evil all across the world That’s why we are delighted to celebrate it here at Juno House as well, bringing in more light and love into this beautiful space! We celebrate by making a lot of dishes but also lots of sweets, dry fruits, nuts and use other products that are very rich and make everybody appy. It’s only one day, so we all indulge, and you should too ;)! The beauty about preparing these meals is that you prepare it with so much love to feed your loved ones. The preparation can take up to hours, which is a lot of fun, but nowadays in modern times we also have ways to make the preparation easier and more efficient, yet prepared with as much love as always.
Diwali is a beautiful tradition and as I mentioned, it is celebrated all over the world. So why not here in Barcelona? Surrounded by women at Juno House, we feel this is the perfect place to celebrate the festival of lights together. You can expect a Bollywood danc class by Gungur, live music, delicious food and a very special cocktail that I prepared together with Santi. Spoiler: we combined fresh fruits and famous spices from India!
Interested in attending the Celebrating Diwali: Bollywood Dance Class at Juno House?
Sign up here. It’s €15,- for members and €25,- for non-members. Bring a friend!
