Diwali or Deepavali is a Hindiu Festival of lights. Celebrated in the Hindu lunisolar month between mid-October and mid-November, this festival is meant to symbolize spiritual victory of light over darkness.
Lakshmi, wife of Vishnu and goddess of prosperity, and Ganesh, god of wisdom, are honoured in this festival.
It is also said to celebrate the return of Rama with Sita ending 14 years in exile and after defeating Ravana.
Cleaning, renovating and decorating homes, shops and workplaces are a feature in preparation for the feast. People wear new clothes and make sure that their homes and surroundings are illuminated to welcome the goddess of wealth.
It is a five day festival. The third day is the height of the festival coinciding with the last day of the fortnight of the lunar month.
The prayer for this Diwali is that, just as India gets illumined by lights and colours, let our hearts and homes be illumined with noble values of peace, truth, fellowship and social amity.
Let our children learn the art of transmitting the rays of friendship to people of other faiths living in our neighborhood.
Let the goddess of wealth teach us that there is meaning in honest business dealings and that amassing wealth by devious means is not a human value. That wealth is but an instrument and not an object of worship and that amassing wealth at the expense of justice and fair play will not the appreciated by divine spirits.
We badly stand in need of prosperity in India as we are passing through crucial times. Millions of unemployed people and empty pots and pans of millions of poor people stare us in the face looking for answers. We cannot ignore the cry of the children of unemployed or jobless parents. Nor can we condone situations where farmers or unemployed people get to the verge of saying no to life’s forward movement. All these situations are darkness personified.
We cannot afford to see the national wealth getting hoarded into the barns of a few individuals nor can we afford to believe that the goddess of wealth will be happy to see such accumulations alongside deprivations and rising misery of millions of our fellow citizens.
We want to see our political heads and leaders illumined with wisdom and sagacity, honesty and fair play, ability to lead the citizens along the enlightened path of love and fellowship, unity in diversity, respect for human beings irrespective of caste and creed.
Their attempt to illuminate our hearts and homes should be by delivering honest service as honest leaders. We also want to hear from them truthful words that will thrill our ears and cool our hearts. We do not expect to be enslaved to their false promises and compromising postures.
Prosperity should not mean shine of wealth in some corners and colorless lives of millions struggling to dispel darkness from their lives.
Let us enlighten our hearts and then lighten our homes!