Diwali, the Indian festival of lights, may have ended more than a week ago, but the Indian Students’ Association will still try to evoke its spirit Saturday.

The association will host its annual Diwali Night — an evening of traditional dance, music and food — from 5:30 to 10 p.m. this Saturday.

The format of this year’s program will mimic that of “India’s Got Talent,” a reality show that pits performers against one another in a talent competition.

For association members, the event is less a traditional Diwali observance than a chance to celebrate the unique arts of their native land.

“We are going to showcase Indian culture,” said Divita Mathur, ISA president and graduate student in bioinfomatics and computational biology. “It’ll be in the form of various dances. And those dances are from different parts of India. There is a south Indian dance. There is a dance from one of the western states of India. There is the dance from one of the eastern states of India. So we just want to cover diverse aspects of Indian culture.”

Priyanka Nandi, ISA public relations officer and graduate student in architecture, said one of the performances would be a “Bollywood sequence” that would feature songs and choreography devised for Indian films.

“Bollywood is a great favorite among Indians,” Nandi said.

Nandi also said the band Punk Punditz would play songs with Hindi lyrics at the event.

Attendees will be invited to do more than just watch the evening’s performances. They’ll also be able to learn about Sankalp, a student organization that raises money for social and economic development in India, at a table staffed by representatives of the group.

If their tastes run to visual art, they can view a design rendered in colored sand — called a “rangoli” — on the floor of the Memorial Union’s Great Hall. Indian artists often make such designs as a part of Diwali festivities.

The cultural program will run from about 6 to 8 p.m. in the Great Hall. After it concludes, event attendees can come to St. Thomas Aquinas Church for a traditional Indian meal.

Though the association isn’t stressing the religious aspects of Diwali, or even many of its widely observed rituals, its members are extensively familiar with both.

Keeping the flame alive

As ISA member Chitvan Mittal, graduate student in biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology, explained, “Diwali” is actually a contraction of the Hindi word “Deepavali.” This word, which means “row of lamps,” evokes the oil lamps that people light for the festival, as well as the other means of illumination (such as electric bulbs and fireworks) they use during it.

Over time, these lights have taken on a manifold significance for the Hindus, Jains and Sikhs of India — all of whose religious communities observe the festival.

For Hindus, one level of the lights’ significance derives from stories about Lakshimi, the Hindu goddess of wealth. Mathur said Hindu families hoping for a visit from the goddess use light to attract her to their homes.

“Back in India, we try to light up our houses,” she said. “She can notice our houses, and then she can come in.”

The lamps also harken back to stories of Lord Rama and his wife Sita. It’s said that Rama left India to rescue her from her villainous captor Ravana. After Rama saved Sita and took her back to the mainland, villagers lighted lamps to celebrate the couple’s return.

In one sense, Hindus’ illumination of their houses, villages and cities is a way of symbolizing good’s triumph over evil, a theme that recurs in Hindu lore.

“Darkness is always related to evil things, and light is something good,” Nandi said. “That is why we decorate all our houses with lights.”

Finding time for the festival

In the United States, Indians hold on to Diwali rituals, though they often time their observance to accommodate American job and class schedules.

“We have to compromise,” Mathur said. “We have a weeklong holiday in India. It’s a season of festivities. But here we have to go to work.”

Mittal doesn’t see the schedule concessions as a damper on students’ enthusiasm for Diwali Night.

“It’s a big event — one of the biggest for ISA,” Mittal said. “I can guarantee that, even though it’s been shifted, people will be as excited as they would [otherwise] be. So that really doesn’t diminish the effect.”