The Season That Forgot Its Silence

Every year, Diwali returns with the same promises: light over darkness, good over evil, reflection over noise. But somewhere between then and now, something changed. The lamps still glow, but the silence that once accompanied them has disappeared. The firecrackers have turned into a playlist, the devotion into a decor. At some point, we had traded meaning for aesthetics.

Diwali is no longer an emotion; it has become an event. It comes with photo shoots, pre-Diwali parties, outfit hauls, and glittering captions. A night of prayer has become a week of performances- matching ensemble, fairy lights hung for the camera, and sweets plated like magazine spreads. The soul of the festival seems to have been replaced by its visual vocabulary.

It’s not that beauty is wrong. It’s that beauty without depth becomes decoration. Festivals previously summoned us in; at present, they drive us out - to be seen, admired, seized. The light, which should have been a cleansing element, has been turned into a prop to flicker before the lens rather than the spirit.

The Lost Vocabulary of Light

There was a time when Diwali was quiet. It was not an aesthetic reason that families came together, but to clean, cook, and pray. The lamp symbolised waking up; the act of its lighting was an inner conversation. Nowadays, it serves as a selfie background. The flame of the diya is in rivalry with LED string lighting and filters that light up everything except us.

The vocabulary of light has changed. Where it once meant clarity, it now means presentation. The essence of Diwali was not chaos or colour, but there was purpose behind it, in the belief that even a small light could take on the darkness. In an attempt to make everything look brighter, we have complicated the very things that matter.

Our traditions are rehearsals of content. Families lit diyas for reels, not for reflection. The sacred has been redesigned to be shareable. Perhaps that is why, despite the celebration, so many of us feel strangely untouched - illuminated by screens, but disconnected within.

The Performance of Devotion

The modern Diwali party is a work of masterpiece - the correct outfit, the flawless playlist, the photo wall arranged with symmetry. When we talk of festive spirit, we usually mean festive aesthetic. The night turns out to be a timeline of uploads: the rangoli must be flawless, the outfit should glitter, the decoration should impress. The ceremony is no longer devoted to the gods; it is now about the grid.

And maybe that’s the quiet heartbreak of our time -we have learned to perform everything, even reverence. We bow before the idea of beauty rather than before belief. Even the very prayer, which used to remain an intimate and unphotographed process, nowadays cannot be complete without validation. Devotion has become a language we don’t speak fluently anymore -only pose for.

But faith, as such, was never about being visible. It was to be touched and not observed. It was not the lamps that were meant to be the true light of Diwali, but that silence that followed after you lit the lamps, that silent interval when thankfulness was in the air.

The Culture of Celebration as Display

Festivals have become our feeds, edited, idealised, curated. We no longer ask how it feels, but how it looked. Even parties are aesthetic practices: living rooms turned into backdrops, laughter rehearsed between retakes and sweets bought for symmetry.

In cities, Diwali parties resemble fashion events. Influencers share luxury hampers; homes compete in interiors. The spirit of togetherness is pixelated - so long as you are tagged, you are there. What was a shared warmth has turned into a shared act.

The tragedy is subtle but profound: we’ve confused participation with portrayal. Real connection is messy, unfiltered, unpredictable, and that is exactly what our aesthetic culture edits out. In polishing the surface, we’ve lost the texture. In chasing what photographs well, we’ve forgotten what feels real.

The Mirror of Meaning

This is not only a change of culture but also a change of psychology. When meaning has become aesthetic, then we start to consume emotions rather than feeling them. We scroll the other people’s Diwali, and contrast our own celebration with theirs, quantifying happiness and ideals. The festival that was supposed to make us one makes noisy insecurities even louder now, who appear more happy, whose decorations are better, whose life seems brighter.

But light was never to be compared. Its purpose was to reveal, not to compete. Somewhere, in our obsession with how things appear, we have forgotten why we celebrate at all. The mythology that used to lead Diwali - the victory of good aided by Rama, has become a celebration of positivity and radiance. We have centuries of religion condensed into a hashtag and aesthetic.

And yet, beneath all this, the old light still waits. Meaning never dies, it only dims under the noise. It waits for us to look past the decoration and remember what illumination truly meant.

Remembering the Light Within

Maybe Diwali doesn’t need to change back, maybe we do. It is not the aesthetic that is the enemy, but the lack of attention that makes it bland. The lights and the colours and the laughter, they can be beautiful, but it is not meaningful until they are conscious. The lamps can still burn with intention if we pause long enough to feel them.

We have lost meaning somewhere in the process of aesthetics; however, we can always regain it. Perhaps this year, Diwali will be less about perfection and more about being present. Lamp a diya, not a photo. Share food, not just stories. Talk to someone that you have ignored. Wait calmly when the fireworks have faded.

The filters will fade in the morning, and the silence will remain. The real festival of light had never been out-of-doors, but it was always within, waiting for us to turn toward it, unposed and unedited.

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