Families across the Bay Area celebrate Diwali with light, food and music

Bay Area Families across the Bay Area celebrate Diwali with light, food and music By Alyssa Goard • Published November 9, 2026 • Updated on November 9, 2026 at 9:27 am Families and community members across the Bay Area came together over the weekend to mark Diwali – the festival of lights, celebrated in India and other South Asian countries. This year, Sunday marked the main day of Diwali, and Bay Area residents had a wide range of free and public celebrations to choose from. Watch NBC Bay Area News free wherever you are WATCH HERE The holiday is widely celebrated by Hindus, but it is also celebrated by people of other faiths, including Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains. One of the largest celebrations in the region on Sunday was at the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, a Hindu temple in Milpitas. "Diwali is like the celebration of light over darkness," explained 13-year-old Devan Joshi of Fremont. Attendees held candles at the Milpitas festival before an elaborate offering of 451 vegetarian meals, designed to represent food from different parts of India and the globe. Detailed archways and ornate displays decorating the festival were all made by hand by volunteers in the days and weeks leading up to the event. Thousands of people from all over the region visited the temple during the daylong festivities. The celebration was open to the public and welcome to anyone, regardless of faith or background. "It's part of the richness of the Bay Area, having this wide range of traditions and faiths," said Mohit Daswani of Los Altos, who has been attending the Diwali festival in Milpitas with his family for years. Holidays Nov 8 What is Diwali, the Festival of Lights, and how is it celebrated? Oakland Nov 7 Oakland's 4th annual free Diwali festival welcomes families for dancing and food The Milpitas event has been happening at the current temple location since 2007. Attendees said as the region's Indian American population has grown, so has the scale of the festival. "Growing up here, like I mentioned, it was smaller, more homey [celebrating Diwali], but now it's so nice to be able to celebrate with everyone," said Janki Dubal, who grew up in San Jose and now lives in Danville. In San Francisco on Sunday, around 3,500 people went to Yerba Buena Gardens for the first Diwali festival there. Visitors to the San Francisco festival danced together, shopped the booths of local vendors and ate traditional Indian food from food trucks. "The goal is to make it an annual thing," explained Seve Ghose, the executive director of the Yerba Buena Gardens Conservancy. "This is our first year doing it." On Saturday, several thousand people in Oakland came together for Oakland's fourth annual free Diwali festival. This article tagged under: Bay Area Holidays