At This Ghaziabad Ashram, 117 Elderly People Celebrate Diwali Together Every Year

Diwali, the festival of lights, is celebrated all over the country, with great pomp and show. Every year, people light up diyas, decorate their homes, light LEDs, burst crackers and more to celebrate the festival. But some people have to stay away from their families during Diwali. There is an old age home in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, where many elderly people have been left there by their children. Despite the circumstances, these elderly people spent Diwali joyfully together.

According to reports, there is an old age ashram in Duhai in Ghaziabad where around 117 old people live together. Among them, there are 68 men and 49 women, ranging in age from 65 years to 103 years. Even though most of them have been abandoned by their children, these people have never shown their disappointment. During the festival of Diwali, they all come together and start cleaning and decorating their old ashram.

All the elders also enjoy dressing up on Diwali. After getting ready, they give each other handmade items as gifts and celebrate the festival by worshipping Goddess Lakshmi and Lord Ganesha. The 103-year-old Kasturi Devi is everyone’s favourite in the ashram. As she is the oldest person in the ashram, everyone is quite fond of her, and she gets the most gifts.

Indresh, who is the director of the ashram, revealed that he has not celebrated Diwali with his family for many years. This is because he loves to celebrate the festival of lights at the Ashram. He also added that similar to every household, there are times when small fights happen between people. But this is mostly on frivolous things like dressing up and sweets. But later, everyone worships together and eats food as well. He further said that there are times when social service organisations or people from outside also come and invite these elders to celebrate Diwali with them.