Renu Bhardwaj is a higher educator and author based in Glasgow who runs a popular Instagram page focused on sharing healthy and affordable recipes. She has just released her debut book Celebrate Diwali.
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00:00I'm Renu Bhardwaj. I've got an Instagram page called Hey Renu and I'm a new author
00:05to my book Celebrate Diwali. The book is about Diwali, there's no other books out there
00:10around Diwali. Well there is, there's a Peppa Pig book and a Mr Men book. So this book kind of
00:16has so much in it, it's got recipes, it's got all the history, love growing up about Diwali and the
00:22rituals and it's also got crafts and a lot of people who have read the book have come back to
00:27me and said the back, like the last chapter has everything else in it, you know like everything
00:32else that's needed and it's got information such as rituals, songs, Indian bhajans which is like
00:38the Indian mantras of songs. So it's just like an all-rounder, great family book. You know a brand
00:43you've loved growing up with, Public Random House, The Penguin and then when they approached me and
00:47said there's a gap in the market, we would love you to write this book and I was like oh my god
00:53yes. First of all the usual me, I question everything, me really, why? And then they
00:59approached me and then they asked me. When I say this, it was only a few weeks when I joined
01:03the dots, I actually manifested this book a few years ago. I remember going to Suck Your Hole
01:09Street and going to WH Smith trying to find a book to teach my kids, educate them, share the
01:15reasons you know behind Diwali so they can get involved and embrace Diwali. There was nothing
01:19there and I remember going home going there's no books out there. Frustrated to my husband,
01:24I should write something. Now that I appreciate it as an adult, being away from my family, I
01:28appreciate and understand so much more about Diwali so I was absolutely ecstatic to be able to write
01:33a book. Hindus celebrate Diwali and everybody sees it as light over darkness. We kind of translate
01:40that to this everyday language, it's like good over bad, light over darkness and I think everybody
01:46don't have to be a Hindu to celebrate that. So it's the biggest festival in the Indian culture,
01:52Hindus, Sikhs celebrate it in their own different versions and as I was writing Diwali, we just
01:58celebrate it as a one day but the book shares that it's actually done over a five day period.
02:03So we start off by cleansing the house, cleaning the house first as a ritual, a really deep clean
02:09and we clean the house and then we go and do pre-Diwali things. So you buy certain things to
02:15bring you good luck, you buy metals, you can buy hardware, brushes, like a
02:21cleaning brush and doing that and then we celebrate Diwali and then there's also another
02:26function which is, again it's not probably resonant to me as a family but maybe you're in India as a
02:31village, there's an extra day which you celebrate depending on the god but then the last day you
02:36celebrate a brother and sister day and I never knew that they all came together because you
02:42pick and choose what you need but as I've now written it I actually understand and appreciate
02:46the festival more.