The Festival Renewed: Cycles of Celebration and Work
Deepavali came again, as it had come every year since Krishna had initiated it decades earlier. But this year was different because the city that celebrated had changed, yet something essential remained. The festival still involved the lighting of lamps, still involved the forgiveness of debts, still involved meals shared across the boundaries that work maintained.
Yet now the ritual was layered with understanding that came from lived experience. When merchants forgave debts, it was not abstract charity but recognition born from watching others struggle and from the memory of a drought year when scarcity had been truly equal. When people gathered to eat together, it was not mere ceremony but a kind of annual renewal of a covenant that had been tested and had held.
The young generation—those born after Dvaraka had established its character—participated in Deepavali differently than their elders had. For some of them, the equal sharing was not revelation but normalcy; they had grown up in a city where such values were the baseline. Yet for that very reason, they understood the fragility of what they had inherited—that it was not automatic but required constant renewal and choice.
Pradyumna added a new element to the festival: a public accounting. Numbers were displayed showing the city's current state—how many were housed, how many could read, how many worked in conditions that honored their dignity. The imperfections were not hidden; the work remaining was not minimized. The festival became not just celebration but also commitment—a moment where the city acknowledged how far it had come and how far it still had to go.
Krishna, now ancient, sat in the garden during Deepavali and watched lamps being lit. A young child, unaware of who he was, sat beside him. "Why light so many lamps?" the child asked. Krishna smiled and answered: "To remember that every person is a light. When all the lights are lit, the city remembers itself." The child understood, in a way that only children can, that this was important and chose to light an extra lamp.
As darkness deepened and lamps multiplied, Dvaraka looked like nothing so much as a field of stars brought down to earth. The city was celebrating not merely what it had built but what it had learned to value: each person's light, the community's clarity, the difficult work of building together. Deepavali, after all these years, remained what Krishna had made it—a moment of remembrance and commitment, burning bright against the dark.