Actually this is confusing in the Dutch language. A Hindu is not the same as a Hindustani, the Dutch word for Indian. A Hindu is someone who believes in Hinduism. A ‘Hindustani’ is someone from India or Pakistan. To make it more complicated, many Indians are Hindu, but some or Muslim. Anyway, we're not from India but from Suriname. Our ancestors were from India. And our family are followers of Hinduism.

It's difficult to explain what it means to be Hindu ....

At first you can't become a Hindu, you can only be born a Hindu. In Hinduism there is not a holy book like a Bible or a Koran. But there are many sacred texts that people used to learn and recite. There are no founders like Jesus, Mohammed or Buddha. And what about God? Well, that's pretty complicated. Hindus believe in one god and many gods at the same time. Hindus have different names for one god: the All, the One, the Almighty, the Infinite, Brahman. This god is almighty. He did not only create the world, but he also makes it possible for it to continue. But Hindus in a way divide this God into different components. Each part has a different name and a different task. That's why it seems like Hindus worship many gods, but in fact they're all one and the same.

There are many Hindu festivals. Holi is the celebration of the end of winter. We make a lot of light in our temple and dab each other over with green and red pigments as a sign of friendship and hope. At Divali we give each other presents, like Christmas, and we put on many lights in our homes. We do that because we hope that Laxmi, the goddess of happiness and prosperity in families, will come to our house.

When we were children we learnt prayers and we say those prayers when we're doing puja. Besides going to the big temple we have a small temple in our house where we have photos and statuettes of different gods. When we pray we hold a little ceremony in front of this small temple.