East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania\u2019s Desi Student Organization (DSO) will host Diwali Night \u201919 at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 12, 2019 at the ESU Innovation Center, 562 Independence Road, East Stroudsburg.<\/p>\n
Diwali Night \u201919 will begin with the ceremonial lighting of lamps followed by a short introduction to the meaning of Diwali and other festivities around this time of year. The introduction will be followed by classical dance, and popular Bollywood dances by ESU students and community children. Special highlights of this year\u2019s program include Tabla<\/em>, a classical Indian percussion instrument, performance by Paresh Kashalkar, a well-known artist from the Lehigh Valley, and henna. An acclaimed local henna artist from the Pocono Mountains will entertain children with simple designs for a nominal charge. There will also be a fireworks display in the parking lot on the Innovation Center. The program will conclude with an ethnic Indian dinner from Clove Restaurant in Allentown, Pa. Bollywood music will be performed during dinner by DJ.<\/p>\n Diwali is a five day festival that occurs on the 15th<\/sup> day of the lunar month Kartik (October\/November).<\/p>\n The word \u201cDiwali\u201d is the modern version of the Sanskrit word \u201cDeep Avali\u201d which means rows of light, and so the celebrations are often referred to as the \u201cFestival of Lights.\u201d\u00a0The festival symbolizes the triumph of good over evil and focuses on appreciating the goodness in everyone \u2013 friend or foe. Diwali festivals are celebrated by a billion people in South Asia and elsewhere in the diaspora annually.<\/p>\n Diwali Night \u201919 is sponsored by ESU\u2019s Desi Student Organization. DSO represents the countries of the United States, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mauritius, Guyana, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Trinidad, and the Caribbean, as well as other Diaspora South Asian countries. The organization\u2019s membership is open to all students. The term \u201cDesi\u201d is a common term referring to, or characteristic of, people of South Asian descent.<\/p>\n Admission to Diwali Night \u201919 is $20 for the general public and $8 for children ages 4 to – 11. Tickets for ESU employees are $15, and ESU students pay a reduced price of $10 per ticket (a limited number of free tickets are given first-come-first-served basis). Students must visit Dr. Pats Neelakantan or Dr. Seewoonundun Bunjun with their university-issued student ID in the political science & economics department (408B Stroud Hall) to receive their free student ticket by Wednesday, October 9, 2019 as quantities are limited.<\/p>\n Advance ticket purchase is recommended due to limited seating for the event.\u00a0Tickets can be purchased online by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n For more information or to purchase tickets contact Dr. Neelakantan at 570-422-3002 or email pats@esu.edu<\/a>, Dr. Bunjun at 570-807-7769, Sofia Shaikh by emailing sshaikh@live.esu.edu<\/a>, or Nimra Khawaja by emailing nkhawaja1@live.esu.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ESU\u2019s Desi Student Organization (DSO) will host Diwali Night \u201919 at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 12, 2019 at the ESU Innovation Center, 562 Independence Road, East Stroudsburg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":19301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[143,42,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-news-release","category-slider"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19299"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19299"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19304,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19299\/revisions\/19304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}