GUILDERLAND — Paarth Sarecha was exhausted on Oct. 31.

It was Halloween but, more importantly for Sarecha, it was Diwali. The Hindu holiday, known as the Festival of Lights, is set by the lunar calendar.

“You have to keep the house really, really clean,” he said of the fortnight leading up to Diwali. “So every day, we were cleaning the house. We were mopping; we were vacuuming and, so, on the day of Diwali especially we were cleaning.”

When Sarecha got home from school on Oct. 31, he went straight to the Hindu temple on Albany-Shaker Road with his family.

His family moved to Guilderland when he was 4. Sarecha has one sibling, an older sister and a Guilderland graduate, who is now in her first year of medical school.

Their father works for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Since I was young, my dad’s always been telling me about the measles outbreaks or the small pox,” Sarecha said. “He’s introduced me to this field and I have a lot of uncles and cousins all in medical-related [jobs] as well … That kind of inspired me to go into medicine.”

While his favorite subject is biology, Sarecha hasn’t decided what path in medicine he may follow.

Continuing his narrative of his busy day on Oct. 31, Sarecha went on, “We spent time at the temple; we did our prayers there. And then, when we came home — almost all Hindus have kind of like a mini temple in their home — so we prayed there in our house as well. Straight after that, I went out with my friends for Halloween.”

He traded his Kurta pajama, traditional Indian attire, for a Star Wars Jedi costume.

“I was exhausted … That’s really what inspired me to say, ‘OK, I need to start pushing for Diwali to be a school holiday.’”

Sarecha is 16, a junior at Guilderland High School. He has enlisted two of his Hindu friends to help him gather signatures for a petition to recognize Diwali as an academic holiday, a day off from school so they can pray and celebrate with their families.

They are closing in on 120 signatures, Sarecha said this week. Once they have 200 petitioners, he plans to make a presentation to the school board.

The high school’s Muslim Student Alliance launched a similar campaign several years ago and was successful in having Eid al-Fitr become a school holiday.

“We don’t have a Hindu student association,” said Sarecha, but students who are not Hindu have signed his petition.

He said that Diwali was for Hindus what Christmas is for Christians.

Not having school recognition of his essential holiday is alienating. 

Sarecha, a student representative who articulately updates the school board on high school activities each month, struggled to find the words ,without being offensive, to express his feeling of being excluded.

“It does feel like — how do I describe it? — kind of like, almost left out,” he says.

He’s “really happy,” he says, that Christmas, Rosh Hashanah, and now Eid are school holidays. “I’m really glad we’re starting to recognize all these different religions, all these diverse people,” he said, adding, “We would be noninclusive to not have Diwali on the calendar at this point.”

“I feel like, also, one billion people celebrate Diwali worldwide and millions of people support celebrating in the U.S.,” said Sarecha, “not just religiously but culturally, like lighting a candle in the house, for example — and so like really believing in that symbolism of light over dark.”

The Ramayana

Sarecha earnestly told the story behind the Diwali holiday, patiently spelling the names of gods to a naive listener and later emailing detailed notes.

In the tradition followed by Sarecha’s family — different regions of India ascribe different religious significance to the holiday — Diwali is the celebration of the Hindu epic, “The Ramayana,” which tells the story of Lord Rama, one of the most prominent Hindu gods.

Lord Rama was to be the king of Ayodhya, a kingdom located in modern-day India, Sarecha explained, but his stepmother wanted her own son to be king.

So Rama exiled himself for 14 years. He lived in the forest with his wife, Sita, and his brother, Lakshmana.

“While they were in the forest, his wife got captured by the demon king of Lanka, Ravana,” said Sarecha. “Ravana was truly evil, torturing people and killing them, trying to control everyone ….

“Basically Rama was at a really all-time low and the only person who was there for him, at this time, was his brother.”

Determined to reunite with his wife, Lord Rama set out to find anyone who could help him defeat Ravana’s army and rescue Sita.

He went to the kingdom of Kishkindha, ruled by the monkey king, Sugriva, who agreed to back Rama with his army.

Lord Hanuman, “the monkey king’s right-hand man, became Rama’s most loyal, trusted sidekick,” said Sarecha. “He’s known even to this day for his loyalty and devotion.”

Hanuman had the power to shrink to the size of an ant or to grow to the size of a planet; his strength was immeasurable and he could fly.

He located Siva in the kingdom of Lanka after which Lord Rama and the army crossed over into Lanka using what is now known as the Ram Sethu bridge.

Ravana and Rama battled, as did their armies, with Lord Rama emerging victorious, allowing him to rescue his wife, Sita.

“The demon king is dead …,” says Sarecha. “So Rama comes back to his kingdom and everyone is ecstatic, everyone is celebrating because they’re like, our god has come home; the righteous king has returned; he defeated the demons. Everything is all right with the world.”

Candles, called diyas, are lit by Hindus during Diwali to celebrate this triumph of light over dark.

“No place should be left dark,” said Sarecha. “Every single light should be turned on. Even if there is light in a room, you can always put more light. You can always put more candles. You can always do something.”