Wednesday, November 08, 2023

Deepavali - the festival of lights

 Deepavali is around the corner. While it is a bummer that this holiday falls on a weekend this year, it still is a little exciting to know it is here. "A little exciting" because our family don't really celebrate it. Perhaps we should. Wish we had friends who did celebrate Deepavali and who, more importantly, called us over :)

The little I know of Deepavali is that it is the festival of lights. Lights that symbolize the victory of light over darkness, good over evil. Nothing inherently evil about the dark though - that was just a thoughtless metaphor adopted by men in the past. But yes, victory of good over evil. Nothing good about evil ever. And while the conventional interpretation of the Ramayana is about Ravanan being evil and Ram being good, things have never been so black and white. It is impossible to label people as good and evil. Of course, some people are evil some of the time. Perhaps, all of us have been evil some of the time. 

Today, a lot of what's happening around the world makes it hard to label people as being good or evil. So we can not really cheer for one group's victory over the other. But we can cheer, pray and work, for the victory of good over evil - of peace over war, of life over killing. 

To anyone who may be reading this - Happy Deepavali.

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