Diwali Celebrants - Small Rituals Of Love
Your Diwali Ritual of Love
In two days, the lamps will be lit.
Millions of them, on doorsteps, rooftops, windowsills and walls.
And behind every single one, there is a small story of love.
We speak of Diwali as a festival of lights. But when I think back across the years, it is not the lights I remember most. It is the hands that lit them. The rituals of the people who made the house ready.
The grandmother who insisted the first lamp be placed at the doorstep, for whoever might be coming home.
The father who climbed the roof every year to hang the same old string of lights, muttering at the tangles, refusing all help.
The mother who made sweets for the neighbours before she made them for her own family.
The child who was finally trusted to light one diya by herself, and held the matchstick as if it were made of gold.
These are not grand traditions. They are small, repeated acts of love, made holy by returning to them, year after year. Just like the evening lamp we spoke of last week.
So today, the Reader’s Chair is yours again. Tell me about your Diwali ritual of love.
Not the shopping, not the decorations, but the one small thing your family does, or did, that holds the whole festival together for you. A lamp placed in a certain spot. A sweet made only once a year. A prayer said at a particular moment. A person who is no longer with you, but whose ritual you still keep.
And if Diwali is not your festival, tell me about the light you keep in your own tradition. Love has many festivals, and every one of them has its lamps.
Write it in the comments below, or send it to me privately at [email redacted], in any language your heart speaks.
On Sunday, Diwali day, I will share a few of your rituals, without names unless you wish, in my Diwali essay, The Lamp That Came.
Let us light this Diwali together, one story at a time.
Four lines for you and me today :
Not crackers’ roar, not shining gold,
but hands that keep what hands once told;
one lamp, one sweet, one prayer, one door:
the ritual love returns us for.
Tell yourself : Which small Diwali ritual of love would you never let go of?
Love : Kindness : Compassion : Gratitude
Thank you for spending these moments with me.
— Vijay Sharma
SHIVAM – An Art Studio · Goa · Pune
Books: https://lnkd.in/dnX2R2Sq
You Came: coming 31 December 2026. Follow the road to it in 75 Days to You Came.
Write to me: [email redacted]