Let there be light

Here I am sitting in a pitch dark house, NO, not by choice, but because the very light pole which stands in front of my backyard decided to play nasty and gave the loudest bang taking with it the electricity! Being alone in a lightless room can make you think. I have two choices. Choice 1:  replay all the horror content I have accumulated in my years on this planet via scary stories as ‘experienced’  by narrators,  the creepy books I read, and of course the spine-chilling horror movies I saw (whatever little I could manage to sit through). Choice 2: give this darkness it’s well-deserved credit, meaning thereby, enjoying it.

I am going with Choice 2.  How many times do we actually sit through a lightless moment without feeling disturbed?  It not only has its physical effects but also affects us emotionally and psychologically. As many of us have heard over years from the ‘wise mouths’ in our lives, it is only in the absence of something that you realize its value. As long as we are on this topic, it is essential to note that millions around the world are celebrating Diwali, a festival that glorifies the victory of good over evil after how surviving years of exile and struggle a king and queen returned to their Kingdom and were welcomed by lit diyas and fireworks. So a period of darkness came to an end and the era of light began. It is quite poetic how my being stuck in this situation has taught me to understand how it must have felt years ago even if it was in a mythical world where Ram (the king in the story of Diwali) returned after years, and how the happiness of the people came across as beams of lights throughout his kingdom.

It is this, isn’t it? The true meaning of light. This light which has always been our strength as predators in the jungle, the time where all the ‘civilized’ work needs to be done, a way of offering prayers to God, this light has been our way of life as we know it. Why could we never as a race evolve to beat its need? Rather we went a step further and made it a part of us, by symbolizing it as a way to express our happiness.

Many of us reading this, in fact, all of us, cannot bear the thought of living lives in a completely dark environment. For that, I pay my most humbled regards to the people with impaired visions. Not only I have witnessed numerous of them to be more capable than many of us with active vision but to top it all they find time to be happy in a place where it can be easy to be lost.

So today while writing this, I did a little experiment. First, I remembered the people who could not see (I salute you!) thus daring to get up and going out to see what was happening outside my apartment. I met a man, who was as lost as I was with all the electrical issues, but who also happened to know art. We got to talk. So you know what I got out of this ordeal? A friend.

So I don’t know if Diwali reminds us of the power of light over dark and all the high power drama which we have been taught over the years. What I do know is, apart from all the religious theatrics, it preaches FEARLESSNESS. As the story goes, Ram was lost and alone in a forest with just his brother, but his courageous heart led him to not only defeat the mightiest king, Ravan but also win his wife and kingdom back in utmost glory. Isn’t it logical? We can never see darkness, we can only feel it. So this Diwali light the lamp within and light the way for the ones who are lost and bring them home!

Happy Diwali!