Diwali in Trafalgar Square

Diwali arrived in London last Sunday – a week too early according to Susen’s cousin in Kolkata where the celebrations take place on 3 November.  But, as Susen said, we can be flexible.  There are many paths and many ways to celebrate.

We decided to experience the celebrations in Trafalgar Square via lunch at Masala Zone in Covent Garden.  Masala Zone was busy – lots of Indian families there as well, which was good to see. As a restaurant, it is growing on me.  I wasn’t sure at first, or at least just got an ‘OK’ from me – but it fills the existing gap for a mid-market Indian contemporary restaurant offering reliable quality.  Their lunchtime thali is good value for money - £10 for the grand thali, if choosing either a vegetable or chicken main curry.  I did get a little over-confident with my chilli experiments, ordering the masala chilli paneer – only to find the sauce burnt my mouth and I just couldn’t eat it.  To their credit, the manager swapped it for a chicken korma dish without additional charge or fuss.

Trafalgar Square was packed.  As we approached the crowd, a lone bagpiper across the road competed for attention against the Bollywood beat on stage.  It was great to see so many people on an overcast autumn afternoon, but it did remind me why outdoor festivals, particularly urban ones in London can be hard work.  The set up was conventional, with a central stage and screen for the live performances, with various food and other stalls around the edges.  But so many people means lots of queuing and trying to squeeze past people to view the performance.  I am probably just getting old.

It was great to see such a mix of people though and a feeling that it wasn’t just an Indian Hindu event, but something in which everyone could join in.  White women were walking round dressed in saris which almost seemed normal until a woman with Doc Marten boots and jeans on underneath her sari did make me wonder whether I had missed some new fusion fashion statement.  We then discovered the ‘Saree Experience’ stand where women were queuing to be dressed in a saree (over their clothes) which explained the new fashion.  One Indian street food stall was staffed entirely by white English people – which Susen seemed to think was strange, though the ethnic mix had not struck me as anything unusual at all.

Bastions of the British Empire watched over proceedings from their immortalised positions in the square.  I have no idea what Sir Charles James Napier (General of the British Empire and the British Army’s Commander in Chief in India – notable for conquering the Sindh province [now in Pakistan]) and Sir Henry Havelock (British General who oversaw the recapture of Cawnpore during the mutiny of 1857) would have made of the festivities, but I like to think they would be tapping their feet along to the Bollywood beat while the statue of Lord Ganesh looked back at them.  They might even have been smiling at the quirkiness of the big blue cockerel currently installed on the fourth plinth.

It would have been good to have stayed for Anoushka Shankar’s expected performance later on, and I also imagined how good thousands of lights and candles might have looked against the autumn darkness.  But it was time to leave.

We crossed the road, past Uganda House – the country who had unceremoniously expelled all Asians in Uganda in 1972, making the UK the beneficiary of so many skills, talents and hard work brought with the new immigrants who sought refuge here.  As we waited for the bus, the sound of Hare Krishna chanting could be heard, the bagpiper having finished his solo.

I felt like London had come of age, a place where, at its best, you are free to be whoever you want to be.  I’m still pondering the sari with jeans and Doc Marten’s though, but you never know.