The gentle art of lighting a lamp

Six weeks after my wedding, I landed at the Washington Dulles airport on a wintry December evening. I picked up my luggage and scanned the crowded arrivals hall with a mixture of exhaustion, excitement, and dread. Except for my husband who I had met twice before the ceremony, I did not know anyone in America. I was optimistically, naively, embarking on my very own Bollywood-tinted version of ‘happily ever after’. It would be decades before I would understand that happiness does not come from a person or place.

The small apartment felt cold, despite the dull brown carpet that lined every surface. An L-shaped sofa with grey plaid upholstery sat in a corner of the living room with a round glass-topped coffee table at one end. The dining area was strewn with a few empty moving boxes. A new mattress lay on the floor in the bedroom. Why did this apartment seem more spacious than the one-bedroom flat in Mumbai that I had left behind?

The space which I had shared with two brothers, parents, and a grandmother had been cramped but it had also been full of cozy conversations and accumulated memories that had enveloped me in a tight embrace.

Despite central heating, this apartment felt cold. I peeped through the curtains into the silent winter night. Bare limbs extended from tall trees, like hands reaching up for a warm hug.

“Does it snow here?” I asked, echoing the ignorance of people from tropical countries who romanticize snow, unaware of how ill-equipped they are to handle it.

“Sometimes,” he replied.

When he left for work on Monday, I pulled back the curtains. Cars whizzed by at high speeds on a stretch of highway in the distance. The street outside was deserted. I looked up at the blue sky. Clear day did not mean warm day; I had learned that over the weekend while walking around the Smithsonian, my toes freezing in the few minutes it took to get from one enclosed museum to another.

I missed the familiar sounds of vehicles honking, street vendors calling out their wares, and the whistles of our neighbor’s pressure cooker back home. Silence was the only palpable presence within and outside these walls.

Phone calls were expensive. In any case, the time difference was impractical for a call. I thought longingly of home. In the bustle of my mother’s kitchen, ribbons of sunlight entered through the large window and served as a smoky backdrop for spicy aromas from Amma’s stove and long trails of jasmine-scented smoke billowing from incense sticks my father lit as part of his morning prayers. He would light lamps, chant prayers, and offer flowers to various Hindu deities arranged on the low altar.

It would be impossible to recreate the welcoming ambience of my mother’s home in my windowless kitchen. Perhaps I could begin by setting up a space for prayer.

In Mumbai, our kitchen doubled up as a dining room during mealtimes, but one corner was dedicated to the altar. In America, space was not a constraint, but my kitchen lacked natural light, plus its smooth countertop was cluttered with unfamiliar appliances.

Repurposing a sturdy cardboard box to create a makeshift altar to hold my Ganesha idol and framed photographs of other gods and goddesses, I chose an east-facing spot near the French doors leading out from the dining area to the balcony

I spread a red stole with a gold border on the box and layered it with the weekend's Washington Post to soak up spilt oil drops and collect hot embers of incense ash that would undoubtedly fall on it each day.

I searched my bulging suitcase for the pair of silver lamps, a gift from Amma, who had thoughtfully included a pack of cotton wicks. I wondered if it was a silent request to initiate a time-honored tradition in my new home.

“Use sesame oil,” she had advised. I knew the rest.

Each morning, Amma’s day began with a series of unchanging rituals. She would first wash the silver lamps with hot water and detergent to remove soot and oily residue followed by a deep scrubbing of the brass lamps with tamarind and salt to reverse oxidation and reveal its burnished gold sheen.

My grandmother would spend her afternoons making cotton wicks from long skeins of unbleached cotton. Her deft fingers would shape them into little flowers, with sharp stalks and dandelion-like gossamer heads that would be stored in a biscuit tin to protect them from the humidity.

Amma would pour a tablespoon of oil into the shallow cup of two lamps and slide the pointed end of each wick, letting it soak for a few moments. Through capillary action, the oil would permeate all the way to the head of the wick which she would flatten into the cup. She would then strike a match and light the soggy shaft of each wick which would quickly light up into a tiny oval flame that would burn steadily for at least an hour.

On school days, the two orbs of light and the sweet smell of incense would remind my brothers and me to quickly prostrate in front of the altar before racing out. In contrast, the evening ritual of lighting the lamps at dusk, was slow and soothing.

In that ambiguous hour between day and night, I would sit beside Amma and recite prayers or listen to her sing hymns. As the flames flickered and projected shadows on the walls, a nebulous peace would permeate our home with the lamp as the center of that aura.

At twenty-two, my first move away from home had been a long flight to America, a large leap into the unknown. The country was as much of a mystery to me as the man I had married. He watched me fill the silver lamps with cooking oil and immerse the cotton wick. We hadn’t discussed religious rituals. Well, we hadn’t really discussed much of anything.

I asked him for matches, a common item in Indian kitchens. He hesitated, fearful of apartment rules, possible fire safety violations, and the wall to wall carpeting. After a brief search, he handed me a lighter left behind by his previous roommate. It took a few attempts before I got it to work. I lit the lamp, said my prayers, and prostrated to Ganesha, requesting blessings for this new chapter of my life.

The altar setup was my first step in setting up my own home, my first independent decision. Who knew that this one step would be the first of many choices I would make, some of which would diverge from the plan for my life that others had made.

***

Fire is an important component of Hindu traditions – from the sacred fire around which you walk during your wedding to the final lighting of the funeral pyre, it occupies center stage at significant life events. On ordinary days, lighting an oil lamp is a tiny but important part of daily practice.

As I continued to light a lamp twice a day, I had no way of knowing what my ‘fairy tale’ life had in store for me. There were many magical days with trips to Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon, mundane days in the lab as I pursued a Ph.D., agonizing days after a miscarriage, desperate days handling infertility, and one miraculous day when I delivered a perfect baby girl whom we both adored.

Years later, I lit a lamp in the midst of the gloom over job loss and frustration of chronic illness, through the turbulent time of our divorce, the exhaustion of single parenthood, and the fiery grief upon the death of my parents. Innumerable restless nights when I did not know what the next day held in store, but I knew what I would do in the morning. Light my lamp. Every. Single. Day.

My life changed. My marital status changed. I changed. But my daily ritual stayed constant.

In the dull gold glow of the lamp at dusk, I would sometimes chant. Or sit still while my mind buzzed with wordless questions. Sometimes I would silently send out anguished requests, demanding explanations, seeking solutions. At other times, in the absence of a clear way forward, I would calmly declare my willingness to understand the turmoil outside and inside me. In the presence of that gentle, flickering flame, I learnt to surrender.

Lighting the lamp is an art. A ritual. A discipline.

For my mother, it was a religious practice. For me, it began as a way of holding on to what I knew when I didn’t know anything else.

Today, lighting the lamp has become my anchor, and my focus; a deliberate act, and a resolution.

My mother taught me how to light a lamp. Life gave me a reason to do so.

Ranjani Rao is a scientist by training and a writer by avocation. Originally from Mumbai, India, she spent several years in the USA before returning to India. She is a cofounder of Story Artisan Press and has written short stories and personal essays that have been featured in digital and print magazines such as India Currents, Khabar, The Curious Reader, and newspapers such as Mercury News (San Jose),The Hindu (India) and The Straits Times (Singapore). Ranjani lives in Singapore with her family, and is currently working on a memoir.

Yoga came into my life when I was a young mother trying to find time to write while working at my day job as a scientist in California. From restoring my body to rejuvenating my exhausted mind, yoga brought a new level of awareness to my hectic life. Two decades later, I am happy to report that I am a dedicated yoga practitioner. In these days of seclusion at home due to Covid-19, I have ramped up my practise from two to four days a week.

Since my waking hours require considerable mental work, the physical act of getting on a mat helps bring me back into my body. It is a welcome break and a breather, a reminder to be completely present in the moment.

Walking is my preferred moving meditation when I leave my home either in the form of a daily commute to work by bus or train or a short lunchtime excursion or a long post-dinner stroll. Walking is a practice that I find essential because it is intricately linked with my writing process.

My essay explores another daily practise that has given me strength and guidance over the years. The act of lighting a lamp every day was a religious practise for my parents. For me, as a young bride in America, it began as a way of holding on to something familiar but, like any discipline, it took on a different role as my life evolved.

More on Ranjani Rao’s work can be found on our Links page.