Deepavali - Festival of lights!

You must be thinking why use ‘Deepavali’ when we can say Diwali. It has nothing to do with North and South differences that prevail in India. The word ‘Diwali’ is a corrupt word of the sanskrit word ‘ Deepavali’. Deepavali means ‘light of dharma’ (deepa) that continues in a line (avali) – a more literal translation, ‘rows of clay lamps’.

Anyway, coming back to my story – I missed this festival last year as I was away from home so I was all excited about being home for this year’s Deepavali. I thought it will be fun-filled, with lots of lights and flowers around. The ambience and atmosphere will be like that of a temple – peaceful and meditative. What happened in actual was a far cry from what I presumed would happen. Come evening, it felt like I was in a battlefield. I had to put wads of cotton in my ears and sit in a corner, irritated because that didn’t help in anyway. For God’s sake, it is a festival of lights, not noise and pollution.

The main philosophy of this festival is that there is something beyond the physical body and mind which is pure, infinite, and eternal, called the Atman (our soul). Just as we celebrate the birth of our physical being, Deepavali is the celebration of this Inner Light, in particular the knowing of which outshines all darkness (removes all obstacles and dispels all ignorance), awakening ourselves to our true nature, not as the body, but as the unchanging, infinite, immanent and transcendent reality. With the realization of the inner-self comes universal compassion, love, and the awareness of the oneness of all things. This brings Ananda (Inner Joy or Peace).

In general, darkness represents ignorance, and light a metaphor for knowledge. Therefore, lighting a lamp symbolizes the destruction, through knowledge, of all negative forces- wickedness, violence, lust, anger, envy, greed, fear, injustice, oppression and suffering, etc.
I will not get into the details of the meditation stuff but the reference of inner-self and other profound words has been used to understand the true nature of the festival. Just to remind you that we cannot awaken our inner-self with so much of noise around, it requires peaceful and agreeable surroundings.

So please say no to crackers, our families will follow suit, gradually everyone will. You will be surprised to know that Tamil Nadu government has already put some restrictions on firecrackers production. They have banned production of any firecracker that exceeds 125 decibels noise/sound level. This will, however not bring about much change because like we had access to illegal liquor during prohibition time, there will be illegal firecrackers sold even now. This change can happen through us. We are educated; we can make a difference and make our cities/our country a better place to live. Let’s lead India – please consider it as our duty, don’t dream of some political party bringing about the change without our initiation.

This is just a suggestion, if you like it please practice it. If you do not like it, we hope you will sometime soon – until then, everytime you burst crackers think about the tiny tot next door who gets frightened by the noise and cries all night through, or about the old couple that live in your neighbourhood whose heart is so weak that it may skip a beat everytime a ladi or an atom bomb is burst. You will realise that there is no greater happiness than making others happy.
I can understand that the young at heart would still want to do something more exciting, the romantic guys would want to watch the starry sky that becomes a canvas of shimmering glitters and sprakling lights. To achieve all this you don’t need firecrackers, instead opt for fireworks.

Less child labour, less noise – more colours, more happiness.
Hope you all have a great year ahead!