KITCHENER -- Diwali Festival of Lights will go ahead this weekend, with some changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jignesh Rupareliya and Anjali Majeethia were busy Friday preparing food and decorations for the Diwali.
The festival usually involves multiple celebrations with family and friends.
"You cook a lot of food and sweets, you're greeting each other, people are coming to your place and you're greeting each other happy Diwali and it's a fun time," Rupareliya said.
This year, connecting will be mostly online.
"We have set up a virtual Diwali celebration group," Majeethia said. "We'll see what yo made, the sweets you cooked, the decoration in our house."
The couple said this wasn't what they were expecting for their first Diwali as a married couple in Canada.
"This kind of Diwali we never imagined or never thought," Rupareliya said.
"Diwali, what it reflects is the triumph of good over evil and enlightenment over ignorance," said Satish Thakkar, chair of the Canada India Foundation.
The community is finding creative ways to share Diwali's spirit this year. The Kitchener Hindu Temple and MaxTech Innovations in Waterloo delivered masks, sanitizer and a $5,000 cheque to St. Mary's General Hospital on Thursday, along with 600 vegetarian meals for staff.
"If you want to share the festivities, share the blessings, there are hundreds of ways to do that," said Ritesh Malik, national convenor of the Canada India Foundation. "People are finding those unique ways to do it."
Malik added the meaning behind the festival is particularly poignant during the pandemic.
"This shall also pass," Malik said. "Diwali is a triumph of light over darkness, goodness over evil, so this shall pass. Diwali is a great, great reminder for the fact that dark times are not going to last forever."
