reflection

Each year, when Diwali arrives, I don't see it just as a festival of fireworks or sweets. I see it as a mirror. Reflecting how far we've come, and what we've let slip away.

This festival of light has lived through every yuga. The stories changed, the heroes changed, the rituals changed. But something at the core never did. Light over darkness, goodness over ignorance. Only the shadows changed shape.

The man who rooted me never spoke in legends. His battles lived in silence—in the way he held a cup of chai, in the pauses between his poetry, in the stillness of his gaze.

It was he who slipped me my first book, who opened the door to words that became my sanctuary when the world demanded I shrink. And when the time came to leave, when the home that raised me became a battleground, his quiet blessing was the only compass I carried.

I left not with certainty, but with courage. Roots that bend, that travel, that replant themselves in exile. Roots that whisper: your freedom is worth it.