Fluttering around his restaurant, Indian Kuldeep Kumar prepares for one of the most important Hindu holidays of the year: Diwali, the festival of lights celebrated five days a year in India. Falling on Nov. 5, the holiday celebrates prosperity and the victory of knowledge over ignorance.
The Indian community has only a couple thousand members spread across Ukraine. Keeping a low profile, they are hard to spot, except perhaps during Diwali, a colorful time around Indian restaurants. “For us, it’s as important as Easter for the Christians,” Kumar said.
The 45-year old restaurateur came to Ukraine in 1996 to set up a business that would import clothes from India. After a successful start, he moved his younger brother Sadzhei to Ukraine, but soon the entrepreneurs were squeezed out by cheaper Chinese and Turkish imports. Kumar said he then found a niche in the restaurant business.
During an early celebration in Shastra on Oct. 30, about 100 of his fellow compatriots donned ethnic saris and shiny kurta (a long, men’s cotton shirt).
Kumar’s restaurant Shastra, as well as other Indian homes and businesses around this time, was decorated with candles. Their light is supposed to help the Hindu goddess of wealth, Lakshmi, find her way to these places.
Traditions vary around the world. But many Indians, including the Ukrainian community, pray to Lakshmi during Diwali. It’s also considered good fortune to buy property, jewelry and clothes around this time. Some try their luck gambling in casinos.
“Our friends will come over for a game of flash [Indian three-card poker]. There will be some money involved, of course,” Kumar said.
Mita Chakroborty (L) and Simi Meherta (R) enjoy dancing in Shastra restaurant during the early celebration of Diwali holiday on Oct.30 (Serhiy Zavalnyuk)
Saying his prayers to Lakshmi that evening, Kumar asked her “to come over to Ukraine this year.” And while many Ukrainians don’t know much about the Hindu holidays and gods, the name Lakshmi may ring a bell for them.
ArcelorMittal is the world’s largest steelmaker and owns Ukraine’s largest steel mill in Kryvyi Rih. The company’s billionaire owner, Lakshmi Narayan Mittal, shares a first name with the goddess. He doesn’t live in Ukraine, but needs her help, restaurateur Kumar said. With the two privatizations of the mill still a bone of contention with Ukraine’s current government, Mittal faces regular pressure. In the beginning of October, the steelmaker was crying foul over a legal case brought by prosecutors. The company feared it could have been the first step in an attempt to strip it of its $4.8 billion investment in Ukraine’s leading steelmaker. But the case was later dropped.
I worry about Ukrainian politics and economics more than about Indian now. Especially when Lakshmi Mittal was in question.”
– Restaurateur Kuldeep Kumar
But Diwali is more about joy than worries, so Kumar attends mostly to his guests. “I wait all year for this holiday,” he said. “It reminds me of my happiest childhood memories in India.”
His cooks prepared a dozen Indian dishes ranging from deep fried aloo tikki potato balls to spicy orange lollipop chicken wings. Decorated with bronze statuettes of Hindu gods, Shastra was as festive as a Bollywood movie on the evening of Diwali celebration.
Most members of the community, however, will spend Diwali at home. “We keep the windows open, put candles on windowsills and doorsteps and decorate our house with fairy lights to call Lakshmi in our home,” said Kumar’s brother, Sandzhei. Apart from Shastra, they also own New Bombay Palace restaurant and are setting up an Ayurvedic health center with massages and yoga classes.
Married to a Ukrainian, Kumar feels fully assimilated. And although he visits India at least three times a year, he said Ukraine became his second motherland. Without him, “we wouldn’t see each other as often,” said one of the guests during the party.
Restaurant Shastra, 126 A Krasnozvezdny pr-kt, tel.524-5555, www.shastra.kiev.ua
Kyiv Post staff writer Kateryna Grushenko can be reached at [email protected].
Read also ‘Indian ambassador: Cooperation in defense, aviation industries guides bilateral ties‘ by the author.
