After 8 months of bad news, tragic deaths and pandemic blooms, finally the air is filled with festive enthusiasm! Just last week as I was attending my online classes, I could smell and yes, I could literally smell the sweet aroma of besan ladoos that my dear mother was preparing which brought a smile to my face inspite of the boring class I was attending. The reason for my smile were not the sweet ladoos (well yeah, a part of it was) but it was the fact that without even knowing the date of the festival, my immediate thought was that diwali is finally around the block.
It is said that after defeating evil, when the triumphant God returned home, his subjects celebrated and still celebrate it as the festival of “the good wining over the evil” which is happening right now as well. Science: “The good” is finally winning over the evil virus and the only bad side of diwali in the form of noise pollution is being chased away by strict hygienic rules.
This year Diwali for me is not the festival of light, not an excuse to buy new clothes and make noise pollution but a festival of hope and its not just me, but a feeling that 1 billion Indians share with me. After months of seeing and facing the negative curve of “Lakshmi” (the economy), Diwali is bringing her positive side. Because it’s one part of the year where its considered good luck to spend money and buy things from which the giant corporations as well as the small vendors are benefitting from and I wonder whether this custom was started by some medieval king just to give a boost to our dear Lakshmi.
Due to the easement on travel restrictions, the “chirag” of our house has decided to grace us with her presence from overseas which has given my parents a renewed hope and energy which is reflected in others as well for different reasons, be it the malls opening or the students finally graduating or in my case our professor announcing diwali vacations. So, can we please change the essay topics in our schools from Diwali: the festival of lights to Diwali: the festival of hope?
A very cliché solution to all the problems we face is to be positive, unfortunately my solution is more cliché which is don’t just be positive but try to find hope till the situation gets positive or in today’s case negative!