Community elders Jaspal Singh, center, flanked by Humaira Kirmani, left, and Marij Kirmani, right, at the Diwali-Eid Cultural program at Riverside Church in Cambridge last weekend. Event emcee Kandeel Javed looks on from behind along with awardees Sadaf Qazi, Naira Qazi (right) and Sachin Gupta (left). Photo by Beena Sarwar
Two Worlds Touch at Cambridge Diwali-Eid Event
By Beena Sarwar/Sapan News
Cambridge, MA: Some 300 festively dressed Cantabrigians and neighbors gathered at Cambridge’s Reservoir Church on Saturday for the annual Diwali-Eid Cultural program, an interfaith, intercultural event featuring music, dance, food and speeches.
“There are four generations here,” said Jaspal Singh, a Punjab and Vedic scholar and Cambridge resident, in front of a packed auditorium. “We are one humanity, one struggle. And I’m proud to say that everything has been put together by the young people.”
This joint celebration of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, and the Muslim festival of Eid was started in 1994 by Singh and his longtime partner Hardip Mann, a healer and retired fashion designer, under the umbrella of Boston South Asia Center, founded by the couple in 1991. The volunteer-powered event brings together members of the South Asian diaspora, encompassing people from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Community elder writer Neena Wahi, educationist Zakia Sarwar, and peace activist Rachel Wyon - Photo Beena Sarwar
Tensions between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan can make it difficult for people from these countries to meet in South Asia. But here is different, in part thanks to community members such as Singh, 73, and Mann, both from India.
“I have seen you both go out of your way to connect very different people with very different lives and bring them together,” said Kandeel Javed, community co-director of Boston’s Muslims for Progressive Values, who emceed the event. Javed, who grew up in Islamabad, added that “we thank you for uniting us and not giving up on us.”
Gaining political power
The South Asian community is also far more prominent in the region than when Singh organized the first gathering in 1994 at MIT’s Ashdown Dining Hall. “There were just 25 or 30 of us then,” he told Cambridge Day.
Now, a third of Cambridge’s City Council has roots in South Asia. Sumbul Siddiqui, who was born in Karachi, Pakistan, has twice been mayor of Cambridge and was the first Muslim mayor in Massachusetts. She spoke to the gathering about what she called exciting new candidates running for office in Cambridge.
Arjun Jaikumar, candidate for Cambridge School Committee, looks on as City Councilor Sumbul Siddiqui speaks at the Diwali-Eid Cultural program Saturday October 4, 2025. Also pictured are City Councilor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler and council hopeful Ayah Al-Zubi - Photo by Manisha Sharma
One of these is aspiring School Committee member Arjun Jaikumar, born in the United States to parents who had emigrated from India. “When I attended Newton Public School in the ’80s and ’90s, I did not learn about South Asian history and culture,” he said, adding that it was only later, in college, that he realized that “stories and history of our communities matter … It’s different now because you engaged with each other and your neighbors. You matter, we matter. Make your voice heard.”
The other is Ayah Al-Zubi, who was born in Jordan. Her remarks addressed issues around her campaign themes of affordable housing and transportation, and she recited with feeling from the Sufi poet Rumi:
“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you
Don’t go back to sleep
You must ask for what you really want
Don’t go back to sleep
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch
The door is round and open
Don’t go back to sleep.”
Also at the event was councilor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler, whose father is from India’s Goa state. He emphasized cross-cultural collaboration, noting that he and Siddiqui have worked on affordable housing and childcare issues. Sobrinho-Wheeler called on the community to vote in the fall elections whether in person or by mail-in ballot, noting that South Asians don’t always have a robust turnout.
Councilor Burhan Azeem, a Muslim born in Pakistan, attended with his fiancé Vijeta Saini, a Sikh from India and a newly minted PhD. “Eid and Diwali both remind us that light and hope endure even in difficult, dark times,” Azeem told the crowd. “Here in Cambridge, we celebrate not just our differences but our shared humanity. At a moment when our neighbors are being wrongly targeted by federal authorities, it’s more important than ever that we come together in solidarity and also remind ourselves of joy and celebrate the bits of happiness we can hold.”
Robotics student Adnan Aamir from Lucknow with Cambridge City Council candidate Burhan Azeem, English instructor Vijeta Saini, and mental health professional Sheza Iqbal - Photo by Beena Sarwar
Food, music and medical advice
There was plenty of solidarity over home-cooked dishes ranging from chickpeas to chicken qorma and desserts such as halwa and homemade pies. The community shared a moment of silence for members who died over the past year – Anupam Wali, Jagir Kaur, Pervez Sarwar Mohammed, Imam Daayiee Abdullah, Muhsin Hendricks – “and all those who have died in wars and genocides,” Javed said.
Volunteers Arif Hussain and Sara Dahya, handing out compostable dishes and coordinating volunteers - Photo Beena Sarwar
Singh invited community elders Humaira and Marij Kirmani of Lexington, originally from Pakistan, to hand out scarves in what he called “farmers’ colors” – honoring the successful two-year campaign by farmers in India to overturn agricultural laws enacted by India’s government during the Covid pandemic.
Outside the auditorium, a table set up by Our Health , a clinical research initiative led by Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, sought to build awareness about cardiovascular disease risk among South Asians. “South Asians are two to four times more likely to have heart disease compared to Europeans, but underrepresented in studies,” said Bhaavana Oruganty, a clinical research coordinator at MGH.
Local musicians led by former Cantabrigian Michael “Buntie” Dewan Singh offered a variety of music. There were excerpts from an upcoming musical by India-born poet and writer Sarbpreet Singh of Hopkinton, based on the 18th century Punjabi epic love poem “Heer Waris Shah,” Punjabi folk songs, even the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” sung by Abhishek Gupta, a native of Lucknow, India, doing a medical rotation in the Boston area. Another performer was Ammara Nawaz Khan, originally from Lahore, Pakistan, who is president of the Pakistan Association of Greater Boston.
Javed, the emcee, noted that “South Asian music transcends the boundaries of religion and region … and we are here to celebrate the beauty of our diaspora here in the greater Boston area.”
(Beena Sarwar is a co-founder of the South Asia Peace Action Network and founder Sapan News. This is a Sapan News feature in collaboration with Cambridge Day , which first published this article.)
