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Diwali means the festival of light. The organizers of the Vancouver DIWALI 2012 (Nov 09, 2012) adopted the slogan “Light Your Spirit” to celebrate the universal light that exists in all of us. Enlightenment would perhaps be appropriate as well.

The evening’s programming included a number of highly sought-after dance and music acts from the Canadian South Asian community.

First up is the Chaniya Chokries Vancouver Garba Dance team at the Roundhouse Community Center in downtown Vancouver’s Yaletown on Nov 10, 2012. The dance story is the telling of the widely-known and popular Radha & Krishna tale that has long been an Indian folklore. The Chaniya Chokries dancers are Vancouver’s newest Garba dance team coming from a national competition in Canada where they placed first in their category.

Other performers included Merlyn Prakash, South Asian Arts from Panj Bhangra, Sangeeta Maruti, Amika Kushwaha, Lapis, Kathak + Flamenco Fusion, DJ A-Slam + Kytami, Vancity Bhangra, Shaimak Vancouver Bollywood Dance Team. Fusion seems to be a key concept and there are no shortages of cross-cultural collaboration between artists from very different backgrounds and artistic disciplines within this group.

To top off the evening at 8:30 PM, a band of percussionists brought together by Sal Ferreras lead the audience outside onto the ground where the old Engine 374 came to rest at the roundhouse which was renovated 26 years before in 1986 when the city of Vancouver celebrated its 100 years of incorporation. The locomotive engine now lies inside a glassy museum nearby.

There, band members played a variety of instruments including Bhangra drums, Taiko, Brazilian bongos and others. Many in the audience stood on their feet and danced enthusiastically as if to release some of the pent-up energy gathered from the night’s powerfully rhythmic beats and vibrant writhing bodily moves from many of the South Asian dance numbers earlier.

Once again, it is what this writer would proclaim ‘Bollywood in Vancouver’. Live!!

Shiamak Vancouver Bollywood Dance [A Video by Ray Van Eng | www.vancouver21.com ]

Chaniya Chokries Garba Girls Team [A Video by Ray Van Eng | www.vancouver21.com ]

Amika Kushwaha + Cassius Khan [A Video by Ray Van Eng | www.vancouver21.com ]

DJ A-Slam + Kytami [A Video by Ray Van Eng | www.vancouver21.com ]

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Ray Van Eng is an award-winning photographer, screenwriter, journalist, Internet publisher and movie/video producer. One of his videos is currently on view at the Hava Nagila Exhibit, Museum of Jewish heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York from Sep 2012 to May 2013.

181 Roundhouse Mews, Vancouver BC, Canada

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The International Buddhist Society is a charitable non-profit organization in Canada that was established in 1981 by two Buddhist disciples who donated land and funds to built a most impressive Chinese Buddhist temple in North America. The temple that was opened two years later is one of the largest (if not the largest) and most authentic Chinese Buddhist temples in North America with a design that was based on the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. With Buddhism being the most popular religion in China, there are actually three most-recognized Buddhist temples in Richmond BC. The other two being The Ling Yen Mountain Temple and the soon-to-be-finished Thrangu Monastery.

The International Buddhist Temple has a number of halls, courtyards, pool and dedicated areas. Wisdom Fountain, lotus pond, nine heavenly dragons and Siddhartha Gautama Pool, Four Heavenly Kings and the Avalokitesvara Buddha, or Guan-Yin, with a thousand hands and eyes are all places and objects of interest to even causal Buddhist followers. The statue of Buddha Sakyamuni in the Main Gracious Hall is also the largest in North America.

The temple has grown in size over the years and now includes a garden next door where monks and other disciples farm fruits and vegetables for the temple’s own consumption. Until you actually set foot at the temple, you wouldn’t believe that such a Buddhist retreat can be found in Vancouver suburb Richmond or Steveston BC, Canada.

Richmond’s diverse population is well served by a wide variety of churches and temples. All the world’s major religious beliefs are represented here on a short strip of the #5 Road in the city.

Come to the “Highway to Heaven” as this Richmond roadway is called and you can witness multiculturalism in action in the different houses of God. Muslim mosques, Asian Kwun Yin temples, Buddhist enlightenment schools and places of worships for South Asians, Christians, Jews etc. can all be found here.

In 2007, CBC’s The National and CBC Radio One Sounds Like Canada selected Richmond’s No. 5 Road as one of the 52 finalists in the Seven Wonders of Canada contest that also included other iconic places and symbols such as the igloo, Niagara Falls, CN Tower etc.

In the end though, Richmond’s #5 Road lost out to even Vancouver’s UBC Wreck Beach where devotees of the back-to-nature religious faith beat the pants off everyone in their own group as well.

As the saying goes, to be included is already an honor. The #5 Road in Richmond, BC should be proud.