Finding light and hope during Diwali in 2020

Raj Mankad says those from India and South Asia have away to celebrate during the pandemic by digging deep for meaning.

In a normal year, those of us from India and South Asia would be celebrating Diwali, known in English as the festival of lights, in proper splendor this weekend.

Grandparents would stuff sweets into children’s mouths. We’d pack into temples and pray. I grew up in a town in Alabama without a temple so it was the altar by the dining table, and a rented hall for a community “function” where the kids lipsynced to Bollywood songs and an uncle treated us one year with a science demonstration with dry ice from his university lab.

The one time I lived in India during Diwali, I was shocked by the endless firecrackers and smoke. And even more surprised, in recent years, by those who treat it as a secular holiday, on par with “Xmas” for non-observant Americans, and a time to serve specialty cocktails with tamarind and mint.

For some folks, the festivities are on, but not for me. Not this year. I haven’t seen my parents in person since March. And I’m not taking a road trip to North Carolina or getting on a plane to see them now as this pandemic sets new records. I don’t want to put their lives at risk. Not after waiting this long and not with the possibility of an effective vaccine in the spring.

Sure, some of the traditions can carry on. Drawing rangoli, or mandala patterns, on the veranda. Lighting sparklers. Little presents for the kids. But it’s not the same without extended family and friends. At first, back in the spring, I enjoyed the peace and quiet of a canceled-everything existence. Diwali is a reminder of everyone I miss.

Indians are hardly alone in this. Easter, Passover, Ramadan — people of all backgrounds have lamented the inability to mark their traditions together. The prospect of missing our sacred rituals forces us to reflect on the deeper meaning behind them.

I asked Surya Nanda of the Arya Samaj of Greater Houston for some help in making sense of it all.

Nanda, a teacher or acharya in Sanskrit, reminded me that the root word in Sanskrit for Diwali is deep, which means lamp.

I’ve never liked the simplistic translation “festival of lights,” in describing Diwali. For me, it matters that the holiday is not just a light show. Inside the lamp burns a flame. And then comes the light and the dispelling of darkness, of senselessness and despair.

And Nanda knows how to get a fire going.

Back in February, before everything shut down, he agreed to conduct a ceremony for my daughter. A kind of initiation into young adulthood but one that has long been reserved for boys in high castes. Nanda is reopening the right of passage to girls, and to boys of any or no caste. He conducted it in our backyard where he lit a ceremonial fire.

As my daughter fed the flames with clarified butter called ghee and camphor, Nanda invoked the stars, the Earth and the great rivers. He reminded us that while we think we own the land we sit on, one day all our bodies will have expired, and our houses will be gone, and so will every trace of our material lives. The heat and perfume of the fire were intense. It had been a cloudy, blustery morning but the sun broke through. I remember feeling relief. Why do I feel so grateful when someone reminds me I’m inconsequential?

I realize that while sharing a ceremony over screens goes a longway, you just don’t get that enveloping heat, the smell, the sear of meaning, over a Zoom call. But I suppose the fire, the heat, the light, despite their powerful symbolism, aren’t really the point, either. They signify what Nanda calls the dispelling of ignorance by knowledge — and for the perspective we need, now more than ever, to get through this awful pandemic.

Nanda only does virtual classes and ceremonies these days. I asked him what he tells members of the Arya Samaj who are isolated or sick or out ofwork. He said there are three types of suffering. The first comes from nature — think tsunamis — and we can try our best to adapt to these external events. The second comes from our surroundings, allowing us to manage risks. With coronavirus, we can wash our hands, wear masks and social distance. The third is spiritual. Anger, jealousy, loneliness — these we can better handle by strengthening our minds and understanding our place in the cosmos.

Nanda neatly brings the lessons of Diwali back to the symbol of the lamp: “Light the lamp of love in your heart, the lamp of abundance in your home, the lamp of compassion to serve others, the lamp of knowledge to dispel the darkness of ignorance and the lamp of gratitude for the abundance that the Divine has bestowed on us.”