I’m sure all of you went trick-or-treating dressed up as mini versions of your favorite superheroes or princesses as children. I’ve been hearing all this talk about people wanting to dress up as a delightful devil, ghouls, banshees, witches and wizards. All this is fascinating to me, as this is my very first Halloween.

I grew up in India watching a lot of American television; yes we have that in India too. So I knew quite a bit about the American traditions. I particularly recall the Halloween episode of the sitcom Friends, which was probably my first exposure to the festival. But this will be the first time I will be experiencing it for myself.

I assumed that Halloween was a holiday like any other festival would be. But I have come to understand its more a mythical festival than a religious one, and hence it’s not a holiday. It did come as a bit of a surprise to me.

It was exciting when my neighbor put up Halloween decorations. I saw some skulls, bats, some colorful lights, dismembered hands, a tombstone and obviously a jack-o’-lantern. This season is all about the Halloween flavor. I saw people picking out pumpkins to carve. With all the talk about Halloween, it got me curious.

I became interested about the festival of Halloween because there is nothing similar in my culture. I did a bit of reading about it and discovered history says that the tradition of Halloween began in Rome in honor of the feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or the festival of the dead.

The jack-o’-lanterns symbolize souls of dead people. Also, it symbolizes the harvest season of pumpkins.

Witches, monsters and skulls have historically been associated with Halloween, as they signify evil omens.

There’s another story about Halloween originating with the Celtics. They celebrated it as All Saints Day or All Hallows Eve. The ancient Gaels believed that on October 31, which was also the harvest season for farmers, the dead came back to life and wrecked the crops. The ghosts and spirits came looking for you and in order to avoid being recognized by them or to please them, they would dress up as ghosts themselves. This is where the idea of costumes probably originated. They would also dance in front of a bonfire and celebrate their harvest and victory against evil spirits.

Nowadays, the way Halloween is celebrated has changed. “Witchcraft” that was shunned upon earlier is fun now for teenagers. Ouija boards that are supposed spell out the future are popular among teenage girls. Voodoo dolls and attempts to call the dead are quite popular. Watching scary movies at sleepover parties and scaring other people with stories and pranks are part of the Halloween theme, too.

Halloween has been a big festival in the state of North Carolina. Franklin Street in Chapel Hill is known to have up to 80,000 revelers on Halloween night. Though it is fun for people who just want to party, the city of Chapel Hill discourages the idea of outsiders coming in and shuts traffic coming towards Chapel Hill for the evening. Pubs have to close down by 1:00 a.m ., just to keep check on the number of participants.

We have our own Halloween celebration this weekend. The Hillsborough Hike, which started a couple of years ago, is located right here on Hillsborough Street. The revelers flock here in their costumes and go pub hopping. The local bars also host best costume prizes. With all the fun here, why would one want to go to UNC ?

I am going to the Hillsborough Hike this weekend, and I hope to see you there. This Halloween, let’s all have a lot of fun and be responsible.