Diwali

It’s that time of the year again, when my land lights up with the gleam of lamps. To an onlooker it just might seem as if the stars have come down and made my land their abode. Every nook and corner seems to have come out from the wraps of darkness and walked right into the realm of illumination. Though the brightness sometimes seems overpowering and blinding, but this day tunes different.

Blame it on my Aquarian traits but stories and folk tales have always fascinated my imagination. In our land children are fed with stories,….faires,kings and queens, folklore….all ways to install every iota of virtue and morality and my childhood was no different. My granny  like any other, read me stories every night as I went to bed and coloured my dreams with tales of valour and the brave! That is how my introduction was made to folktales and stories about our past which, though fadingly,but still, shape our present and future.

Diwali, too, as any other festival, celebrated in our land with an enormous baggage of stories to reason out the actual sense for its celebration.

Some believe that this festival was celebrated to mark the homecoming of Lord Rama, the seventh Avatar or incarnation of Lord Vishnu whose sole purpose was to ensure that justice and peace ruled. He was hailed as an example of morality and virtue.

For the followers of Jainism, the festival marks the attainment of Moksha by Mahavir and for some it commemorates the return of Guru Har Gobind Ji to Amritsar.

Going by its true tradition, the festival is marked by lights and fireworks everywhere. People from all faiths come together to celebrate this occasion with full zeal by lighting up their houses and the neighbourhood  with candles,earthern lamps called”diyas” and lamps. Fireworks seem to dictate the skyline and turn the darkness of the evening to a bright shining horizon.

Whatsoever be the reason or logic to celebrate the festival, which literally translates to…”a row of lights”in Sanskrit,….it binds all,encompassing all irrespective of their colour,creed,race,ethnic beliefs and even geographical boundaries.

In times where man can no longer differentiate between a friend and a foe….these occasions can trudge and embark on the path to show us the “ray of hope “for a better world for the human race.