Niagara Falls, one of the world’s greatest natural wonders will celebrate Diwali with the exuberant play of fireworks this year. This is going to be the first-ever Diwali celebration at this popular tourist destination. The Canadian non-profit, Indo-Canadian Arts Council (ICAC) will organize the festival of lights in collaboration with the Niagara Parks Commission.
“We wanted to have a landmark destination for Diwali to be observed in Canada and we wanted an iconic location,” said ICAC’s founder Director Ajaay Modi as per a report in Hindustan Times, on receiving the permission for the coveted event. For the couple years, ICAC has been toiling hard with local authorities to organize a grand Diwali celebration. Ajaay Modi is the person behind lightening up Niagara Falls in Indian Tricolor this year on Independence Day.
The local authorities taking care of the unwelcoming cold weather in the month of November has scheduled the celebration earlier on October 14. “That’s one drawback of being in Canada, it gets very cold”, Ajaay Modi Modi added.
ICAC has posted a detailed schedule of all the events on their website. The celebration would start with a cultural programme in the afternoon to be followed by extravagant fireworks in the evening.
The celebration would follow with the Canada Diwali festival series, Razzmatazz. ICAC has been conducting Razzmatazz for last five years. This year it is scheduled from October 12 to 13 at Mississauga Celebration Square. Each year over 50000 people attend the festival and create all the razzle-dazzle around the holy festival. Ramlila will also be organized, in which differently-abled artists will perform.
A large number of visitors both on the Canadian and American side will be viewing the panorama, as the Niagara Falls lies between Canada and the US. As in the last few years, a large number of students has started enrolling in the region. They can drive over only 2 hours from Toronto to reach the destination. Therefore, ICAC is expecting a large turnout this year at the inaugural event.
