HUNDREDS of Swindon people are set to come together to celebrate the Hindu goddess of knowledge and arts this month.

The Saraswati Puja 2015 festival will take place for the third year running on January 25, and this year it will be held at the Punjabi Community Centre in Cricklade Road.

Organisers are expecting about 400 people to join in the festivities to worship Saraswati, the mother of the Vedas.

It is believed that the goddess Saraswati endows human beings with the powers of speech, wisdom and learning. Every year, the Hindu community worship her for knowledge and wisdom in Bangladesh and India.

This year’s event starts at 11am, with music and dance performances from local and invited artists from London taking place from 5pm and food and drink served at 7.30pm.

Sujan Saha, cultural secretary of the Swindon Puja Committee, said: “We would like to invite all of our local community to come and enjoy our cultural programme. We also arrange fresh cooked food and drink for every guest. There are so many prizes including an LED TV and a laptop for the raffle draw. We had a couple of charity parties to raise money for our festival in Abys Indian in Swindon and Ashoka Indian Restaurant in Chippenham.

“It’s great to see a healthy exchange of cultural and tradition on such an auspicious platform which brings us closer and makes our Swindon Puja committee stronger as a community in Swindon.

“We are expecting a lot of children and to make the festival more enjoyable for them we will have a lot of children’s activities such as a bouncy castle.

“The morning part of the festival is for all who would like to observe puja. After that we are doing very traditional Indian style food. This year we have a food cooking facility in the community centre.

“The evening part of the festival is for all who would like to experience colourful cultural program. The program will start at 5pm and will continue until late.

“We have invited a professional dance troupe from London who will perform classical Indian dance. Amit Dey and his band will entertain us with a lot of Bollywood tunes as well as Bengali folk songs.

“We’d like to say special thanks for Mr Swapan Roy, Methun Roy, Avijit, Raju, Supon, Biplob, Ripon and all other guests.”

For more information on this year’s event, visit www.facebook.com/Swindonpujacommittee, www.swindonpuja.co.uk or email swindonpuja@aol.co.uk.