A reflection for a Diwali of distant lights.
It is Diwali again. The diyas are lit, the sweets are exchanged, and yet the house glows with a gentler, more private light, but that light doesn’t fill in the home.
There was a time when laughter spilled from every corner, The house was a stage for reunion and rituals. The children would compete to light the first sparkler, or the loudest cracker. Their faces glowing brighter than the fireworks outside. Someone would always burn a finger, someone would hide the anar as a surprise for the next day, and someone would steal the last besan ladoo before dinner.
Someone would retell the return of Rama to Ayodhya, how the city lit a million lamps to guide his way home after fourteen years in exile. Another would speak of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, wandering from house to house that night, blessing only the homes kept pure in heart and spirit. Diwali was never only about the lamps we light, but about the light we choose to keep alive within ourselves!
Now, the laughter arrives through screens of the mobiles and iPad. The conversations are adjusted to time zones. You miss your children’s presence as they no longer live with you.
The Paradox of Trishanku
Long before Diwali lamps were lit on earth, there ruled King Trishanku of the Ikshvaku dynasty. He was noble, generous, but restless. His single, impossible wish was to ascend to heaven in his mortal body.
His guru, Sage Vashistha, refused.
“Heaven is for souls, not for bodies,” said the Sage.
Wounded and determined, Trishanku turned to Vashistha’s rival, Sage Vishwamitra, who agreed to grant the impossible.
Through immense penance and sacrifice, Vishwamitra called upon the Gods, and Trishanku rose heavenward, body and even the crown intact. But the Gods, led by Lord Indra, thundered in outrage:
“This is against cosmic order!”
They forced him down with their powers.
Furious, Vishwamitra caught the falling king mid-air and declared,
“If heaven rejects Trishanku, I shall create another!”
By the force of his amazing powers, Vishwamitra created a new heaven, suspended between earth and sky, where King Trishanku would reign eternally, neither among humans nor among Gods.
Depicting Trishanku upside down captures this cosmic limbo. He is literally inverted between two worlds, a being “neither here nor there.”
Some say that constellation still glimmers in the southern sky as a symbol of ambition, longing, and the price you have to pay for the impossible desire. Thus was born Trishanku’s lonely heaven, radiant but unreachable, and forever suspended.”
The Modern Trishankus
Many parents of my generation live this same paradox.
We are Trishanku parents, suspended between two worlds.
If we stay here, we live amid familiarity. The milkman greets us by name, friends come home unannounced.
If we move there, to be with our children, life becomes bit precise and politely silent. You don’t drop by. You look for weekends and book in advance. You don’t discuss things at the counters in the supermarket; you simply scan and pay.
In this in-between life, a quiet question persists: Whom should we depend on?
Children — whose worlds have widened
Friends — who are themselves aging
Institutions — that provide care but not warmth
Or us — struggling to find grace in our own ecosystem, finding our own heaven
Sometimes, I hear the Professor as an inward voice of reason. He asks me
“Why did your children leave? Wasn’t it your dream that they see the world, do better, live freely? Did you ever imagine what that freedom would cost you?”
He is right. We were the ones who urged them to fly, who celebrated their departures with teary pride. But we forgot to plan for what remained. The quiet house with empty chairs.
Yet the loneliness is not one-sided.
Across oceans, our children carry quiet guilt, the pain of not being here.
They hide it beneath routines and deadlines and stress of losing job on a Friday. They send gifts and money, make Whats app calls every other day but love and care cannot be couriered. They know this too.
When parents fall ill, they rage at bureaucracy — visas, tickets, time. They fear arriving too late. They, too, are Trishankus – suspended between roots and wings that take them across the mountains.
So perhaps everyone is suspended.
Parents between belonging and acceptance.
Children between achievement and remorse.
The parents master patience and the children, guilt.
And somewhere between, love continues. And the lights shine with hope.
So tonight, while the lamps glow softly, I whisper to the flickering lights
We, the Trishankus of our time – parents and children alike – wait for Sage Vishwamitra. He should help us create our own heaven where separation softens into understanding and acceptance – and where love will surely find a sky vast enough to share with no remorse.
Follow me at prasadmodakblog.com
Note: Some scriptures say that finally Indra admitted Trishanku bodily in the heaven. Read this reference for the full story.