It is also a time for the community to light candles, dress in their best clothes, invite friends for parties and eat traditional foods, including Indian sweets such as barfi, a milk-based candy, and ghoogra, a pastry made of cereal and sugar.

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The most popular gift is mithai (Indian sweets), and shops are filled with a spectacular array specially prepared for this festival, from thickly cut squares of barfi (a fudge-like sweet, often coated with a thin film of edible silver leaf) , to soft syrupy gulab jamuns (deep-fried balls of dough) and spongy rasgullas (sweetened cream cheese balls flavoured with rose water).

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