"It's one of the most widely celebrated festivals in the Indian calendar," she said.

"Different people celebrate for different reasons, it's a festival of victory of good over evil and light over darkness."

The five-day festival is celebrated from Tuesday until Saturday by Hindu, Sikh and Jain communities and on Thursday, Tamworth families were among those who decorated their homes, offered prayers and exchanged gifts.

But what's most important to Shalini is the sharing of culture and time spent with loved ones.

"What I really enjoy about this is that it maintains the culture, the language and the food when we keep the tradition going," she said.

"It's such a vibrant culture and it's just like Christmas, for many people it's going out to church and doing it the religious way but it's also about having a get-together, it's the same with Diwali.

"Traditionally in Fiji or India we go around to meet each other, have sweets at each other's house and give presents."

Shalini was born in Fiji and moved to Australia more than 20 years ago.

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She said there are about 600 families in Tamworth that celebrate Diwali.

"When we first moved to Tamworth 18 years ago, we had about five or six families only and one of the things I started doing was the Diwali celebrations," she said.

"There are quite a few different aspects to Diwali and people celebrate for different reasons but we all celebrate at the same time."

Thursday is the biggest day of the five-day festival.

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