Deepavali in Little India, Singapore

Seeing the lights and the market on separate evenings

Most visitors need one evening for the lights and a second for the market, and the two work best on different days. Walk Serangoon Road on a weekday, when you can stop under the arches without being swept along. Save a weekend evening for the stalls on Campbell Lane, and accept that it will be busy. The weekend just before Deepavali is the most crowded of the whole season, with pavements packed from kerb to shopfront, so go earlier if you can choose.

A few hands-on sessions run alongside the market and are worth planning around. Brass lamp engraving at Tekka Place returns on 24 October with only 20 places. On 31 October you can paint a clay diya at Tekka Place or blend spices on Campbell Lane, which makes that Saturday the fullest day of the season for anyone who likes to make things. Book the workshops as soon as you arrive in Singapore.

Light-up dates and when Deepavali falls

The street lights went on for the season on 3 October 2026 and burn every evening from 19:00 until midnight. Arrive just before seven if you want to see the arches flicker on against a dusk sky. Later in the evening the pavements fill with families, so come early for photographs. Since 10 October the Festival Village has been trading on Campbell Lane, and it stays until Deepavali; its stalls start trading at seven too.

The pace builds through October. Early weeks feel like a neighbourhood market, while the final days turn into a rush for new clothes, garlands and boxes of sweets to give away. Deepavali itself falls on Sunday 8 November this year, and the Ministry of Manpower makes Monday 9 November the public holiday. On the day, the focus moves from shopping to homes and temples: lamps at the doorstep, prayers in the morning, visits to relatives.

Plan ahead if you are reading this after the festival. The next Deepavali comes earlier, on 28 October 2027. This year the arches were lit more than a month before the day, and if the organisers keep to that rhythm, a trip in late September or early October 2027 will catch the start of the season.

Deepavali customs and food in Little India

At its core the festival is about light defeating darkness, and good winning out over evil. Hindu families prepare for days: the house is cleaned, doorways are decorated, and on the morning itself oil lamps are lit and kolam patterns are laid in coloured powder at the threshold. Temple visits follow, and boxes of sweets travel between neighbours and friends. The stories behind the festival differ from one region of India to another.

Little India's version of the season is run by the Little India Shopkeepers and Heritage Association under the name Deepavali Thiruvizha. It is a working neighbourhood dressing itself up, not a stage set. At Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple, the five-tiered tower over the gate dates from 1966, and the temple behind it from 1855.

Food is the easiest way in. Buy murukku and laddoo from the stalls to nibble as you walk. For a sit-down meal, head to the ground-floor food centre at Tekka Centre, where Indian vegetarian dishes come on banana leaves or steel platters and North Indian and Malay stalls sit beside them. Upstairs, shops sell Indian costume and tailors take orders, handy if you want something new to wear for the evening.