The Pasadena Hindu Temple in East Pasadena will mark Diwali, the Festival of Lights, with five days of observances from Friday, Nov. 6, through Tuesday, Nov. 10, and a temple organizer says everyone is welcome.
Diwali, celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and some Buddhists, falls on Sunday, Nov. 8, this year. The temple at Rosemead and California boulevards draws families from across the San Gabriel Valley, its organizers say, and in Pasadena, Caltech’s South Asian student club is preparing its own celebration for the Caltech and JPL community.
“First of all, everyone is welcome to attend the Diwali celebration at the temple,” said Rima Madan, who organizes activities at the temple, at 676 S. Rosemead Blvd.
The main event is Sunday, Madan said, when a prayer service will be followed by dinner and candles will be set out around the temple for members of the congregation to light. “So anybody can come and do that and everybody is welcome in the temple,” she said.
The festival closes Tuesday with what Madan described as a large celebration in which 52-plus kinds of food are offered and displayed before the altars, then served to the congregation as dinner.
The temple community will also hold a ticketed Diwali cultural show in San Marino on Saturday, Nov. 14, with dinner included, and Madan said organizers expect about 300 people. Children will dance and perform songs from different Indian states, she said.
Founded in 2002 by 10 devotees, the temple is operated by the nonprofit Hindu Temple and Heritage Foundation and runs weekly classes in Indian traditions and Hindu culture for children. Madan said more than a thousand families are on its roster, built without buying email or mailing lists. “Yes, it’s grown exponentially,” she said. “We have people from all over San Gabriel Valley coming in.”
Families cook food on the premises, decorate the temple and serve the meals, and the number of volunteers has risen every year as younger families get involved, Madan said. “It just becomes a big family, just like if you were in a wedding where everybody’s involved in different things, that’s what happens in all these festivals,” she said.
Children take part as volunteers and earn volunteer hours, she said. “They just become part of the festivities and they just grow into the culture.”
There will be no fireworks. All fireworks, including sparklers, are banned in the City of Pasadena and in unincorporated Los Angeles County. In 2022, the temple’s priest, Jagdish Rajgor, said the temple’s celebration would have no fireworks because they are not allowed in the city.
At Caltech, the Organization of the Associated Students of the Indian Subcontinent, known as OASIS, brings together students from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives. Caltech event listings show the club celebrating Diwali on campus since at least 2003; in 2023, several hundred people attended its celebration at the Beckman Institute’s Glanville Courtyard.
This year’s program will include rangoli, lamp decorations, classical and modern dance and song performances by members of the community, and traditional food, OASIS President Surya Narayanan Hari said in written responses to questions. The night typically ends with a DJ session of South Asian music, he wrote.
The celebration is limited to the Caltech and JPL community and their guests. “The event is open to the Caltech extended community – if any Caltech / JPL members want to bring their family and friends, they are welcome to,” Hari wrote. “Because of funding constraints and our want to keep the event free for attendees, we cannot afford to feed members of the community at large, but we hope to change this down the line.”
Hari wrote that he has friends from Nepal and Sri Lanka who celebrate Diwali at home and friends from Pakistan and Bangladesh who wrote to him excited to attend, and that OASIS has funded an Eid celebration in the past.
Hari wrote that the club worked with Pasadena fire and safety officials on the fireworks question. “Of course, we have worked with the Pasadena fire and safety team and have found that fireworks at this scale is typically not possible given Pasadena’s dry climate,” he wrote. For students without family nearby, he said, “For them, we try to be their family away from home.”
Diwali was added to California’s list of state holidays by Assembly Bill 268, by Assemblymembers Ash Kalra and Darshana Patel, which was chaptered on Oct. 6, 2025, and took effect Jan. 1. The law authorizes public schools and community colleges to close on Diwali, as specified, and does not make it a court holiday.
In July, Superior Court Judge Stephen Acquisto, ruling on a petition from the San Francisco Taxpayers Association, found that “AB 268 violates several provisions of the federal and state constitutions by giving Diwali special treatment expressly based on its religious importance without any significant secular considerations.” The Hindu American Foundation said the ruling focused on the law’s wording about Diwali’s religious significance rather than the holiday’s practical purpose. Reports at the time said a final judgment had not yet been entered.
Both organizers said recognition of the holiday matters. “Actually, because it has been recognized as a state holiday, it has increased a lot of exposure for non-Indian families to also come to the temple and be part of it,” Madan said. Hari wrote, “I would love to see Caltech recognize it on their calendar.”
The U.S. Postal Service issued its second Diwali Forever stamp on Oct. 21, featuring a rangoli made by Texas artist Sangita Bhutada.
Asked what readers who have never celebrated Diwali should understand, Hari pointed to the Diwali story. “But Diwali celebrates the existence of a way back, of light, divine force and the victory of good over evil,” he wrote.
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