I moved to Australia in 2004 as a young immigrant.

Hailing from a rich cultural driven country, striving to find people from my community and feeling rejoiced every time I came across a fellow country man. Yet, emptiness within myself was growing as days went by.

In 2006, my visit to Federation Square gave me the best surprise ever.

What I witnessed there was phenomenal; on display was the Celebration of India Festival that is very close to Indian culture. I was even more excited to see support amongst the local community. Seeing the Diwali Indian Festival of Light being celebrated in the heart of Melbourne was an amazing experience that I still cherish to date. My enthusiasm and my interest to serve the community encouraged me to speak to Mr. Arun Sharma (Current Chairman of Celebrate India) and eventually I became an integral part of the Diwali celebration committee.

As years went by I noticed the Diwali celebrations are well received by the local community.

A lot of non Indians turn up on the day at Federation Square with kids and family to witness the amazing extravaganza of dances, singing, social awareness programs, artistic performances and most importantly, a great opportunity to taste varieties of Indian food. The annual celebrations of Diwali at Federation Square have now become a yearly calender event for many living across Melbourne and Victoria and to make it even more pleasing, local community has started accepting it as a Victorian festival. The efforts put in by Celebrate India have brought significant changes to how people think. We now see a lot of changes in today’s Indian community; people are more pro-active in celebrating festivals and are actively participating in cultural events. Celebrate India has played a key role in leading the community by example and given a sense of home to all immigrants. Over the year we see non-Indian communities also actively participating and getting to know another culture through the celebrations.

With changing times and the help of social media networking, the news on successful events like the Diwali Festival were having a larger impact on society.

The wider community are now willing to either take part or organise a similar event with inspiration. The greatest experience I had was when I initiated a Goodyear Office to Celebrate Diwali and along with fellow Indian Colleagues I was able to organise finger food for the tea break. The response we received from all the Goodyear staff was overwhelming. Everyone on the floor got to know how the Indian festival is celebrated, and many expressed joy and happiness and said they saw would match their Christmas celebrations to ours. The greater surprise to our staff was when Global CEO of Goodyear (In USA) emailed all our associates with Diwali wishes. This showed the significance of the Diwali celebration along with the joy and happiness that the festival brings into our lives.

Today, I always feel blessed to have been part of such a beautiful journey. Without this cultural celebration, I as an Indian would have lost an opportunity to keep intact with my festival celebrations and cultural differences.