A piece of India comes alive in Houston during Diwali, annual festival of lights drawing thousands of devotees

As guests entered the Sri Meenakshi Temple in Pearland on Saturday, they were instantly transported to a small slice of southern India.

The smell of jasmine mingled with incense wafting over women in colorful saris and priests in bright yellow robes giving blessings in front of statues of elaborately decorated deities at the annual Diwali festival.

The sound of chants blended with dozens of conversations in Hindi, Tamil and English and the gleeful shouts of kids playing just outside the temple.

Under the breezy covered courtyard outside, aunties munched on warm naan and hot vegetarian curries before moving on to browse through an indoor bazaar filled with vendors selling fine fabrics, traditional Indian delicacies, gold jewelry and candles. Later, hundreds more temple devotees will gather for festivities featuring fireworks and light displays.

Up to 6,000 people were expected to visit the temple Saturday to commemorate Hinduism’s biggest religious celebration — the Diwali festival of lights. It’s one of dozens of events taking place throughout Houston over the next several days at dozens of Hindu temples, parties and community gatherings celebrating Diwali.

Dating back to the 1970s, the Pearland temple was designed after a temple in the city of Madurai in Southern India and is one of the first Hindu temples in Texas to focus on a female goddess, said Sri Meenakshi Temple Chairman Vinod Reddy Kaila. As the temple has grown in size and gone through several renovations over the past four decades, its Diwali festivities have also grown in scale with a large bazaar of Indian-themed vendors and restaurants selling their wares throughout the day with firework celebrations at night.

People even travel from Dallas and Austin to the Pearland temple for the day, noted Haripriya Sundar, 26, a youth leader with the temple.

“Over the years, it’s gotten bigger in terms of numbers (of attendees) and the diversity of offerings. Over the years, I’ve started bringing my friends and outside people. Diwali is just a time to celebrate with everyone. It’s one of the most major functions in Hinduism, so regardless of how pious or practicing you are, everyone knows what Diwali is,” Sundar said.

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The lunar holiday falls on a different day every year, but typically lands around October and November. Some devotees will celebrate over a five-day period, with the biggest celebration on the third day, which this year falls on Monday. The vastly diverse array of cultures in India has given rise to dozens of interpretations and traditions surrounding the Diwali celebration.

One of the most popular interpretations is one in which an exiled Prince Rama, believed to be an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, returns to the city of Ayodhya with his wife, Sita, and brother, who are greeted with a city lit up with lanterns. (Hence Hindus will commonly decorate their house with clay lanterns, called diyas, during Diwali celebrations.) Another common interpretation in Southern India is that a group of female goddesses combined forces to defeat the demon of Narakasura, noted Sundar.

The holiday also has significance for some Buddhist, Sikhs and Jains who have their own interpretations.

“There are so many different stories but basically the thing they agree on is that good wins. The generic theme is the triumph of good over evil and light over darkness,” Sundar said. For the youth leader who is splits her time between Houston and San Antonio for graduate school, Diwali is time to come home and reconnect with family.

“It’s a time with no matter what mood I’m in, I’m able to lift my spirits up and see my community again,” Sundar said. “We’ll light lanterns, and in America, we’ll put Christmas lights up and have them up until the New Year. It’s just very lively and festive.”

Temple devotee Laxmi Alasakani was there with his two young daughters and cousin after two years going without attending large celebrations for Diwali during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s great to be back and see such a large representation of our community at this festival,” Alasakani said. His family moved to Houston around  2015, and at first, he was surprised at the size of the Diwali celebrations here, but now he’s come to count on it.

Diwali festivities are gaining more traction in Houston as the number of events around the metro grows with an expanding Indian American population here, noted Rishi Bhutada, a Houston native and volunteer board member with the Hindu American Foundation.

“For the longest time, Dallas had the big festival at the state fairgrounds, but over the past 10-11 years now we’ve had this big Diwali celebration out in Sugar Land and that’s really made a Diwali a much bigger event and a lot of temples get involved,” Bhutada said.

Last weekend, events at Constellation Field in Sugar Land drew roughly 10,000 attendees with Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs and even Muslims and nonreligious participants packing in for the spectacle of colorful festivities, lights and food, he noted. Another celebration on Saturday evening at the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Stafford was also expected to draw thousands.

“A lot of people, even non-Indians, come to this festival because it is so unique,” Bhutada said. “It’s not just one person or one faith, but many faiths coming together.”

marissa.luck@chron.com