Di­vali nev­er los­es its mag­ic. Streets sparkle, tem­ples hum with prayers and homes are swept clean, ready to wel­come light and love. The cel­e­bra­tion is a mir­ror— one that re­flects who we are as a na­tion and how far we’ve strayed from the ideals of this fes­ti­val.

In Hin­du phi­los­o­phy, the vic­to­ry of light over dark­ness is about the il­lu­mi­na­tion of con­science, the tri­umph of truth and the courage to face ig­no­rance, greed and in­jus­tice. And in that sense, Di­vali is deeply med­ical—for health too is a bat­tle be­tween dark­ness and light: be­tween ig­no­rance and aware­ness, dis­ease and heal­ing, self­ish­ness and com­pas­sion.

We live in a world where too many peo­ple are forced to walk in the dark. Hos­pi­tals with­out med­i­cines. Clin­ics with­out staff. Cit­i­zens wait­ing months for di­ag­nos­tic tests that could save their lives. The dark­ness is not al­ways phys­i­cal—it is bu­reau­crat­ic, sys­temic and moral.

Di­vali re­minds us that true light is not found in fire­works or pho­to op­por­tu­ni­ties but in acts of ser­vice —in every doc­tor who stays late, every nurse who com­forts a fright­ened child, every cit­i­zen who gives blood or vol­un­teers their time. The di­vine flame is lit when­ev­er em­pa­thy out­weighs ego.

The great­est epi­dem­ic of our time is not di­a­betes or heart dis­ease—it is de­spair. Men­tal health ser­vices in T&T re­main woe­ful­ly in­ad­e­quate. De­pres­sion, anx­i­ety and sui­cide rates climb, es­pe­cial­ly among our youth. And yet, we still whis­per about men­tal ill­ness as if it were a moral fail­ing in­stead of a med­ical con­di­tion.

In the Ra­mayana, Lord Ra­ma’s jour­ney through ex­ile and dark­ness was not just phys­i­cal — it was psy­cho­log­i­cal. His per­se­ver­ance, his faith and his com­pas­sion for oth­ers lit his path home. Per­haps that is the mes­sage we need most to­day: light be­gins in the mind. It be­gins when we treat men­tal health with the same se­ri­ous­ness as we treat bro­ken bones.

Di­vali is al­so about clean­li­ness —not just mop­ping the floor, but cleans­ing the heart. In med­i­cine, we speak of­ten about “hy­giene” and “in­fec­tion con­trol,” but what of moral hy­giene?

What of the cor­rup­tion that seeps in­to the sys­tem when con­tracts go to the po­lit­i­cal­ly con­nect­ed in­stead of the com­pe­tent? These are in­fec­tions of the soul and no an­tibi­ot­ic can cure them.

When doc­tors and nurs­es are un­der­val­ued, when hos­pi­tals rot from ne­glect, when pa­tients lose faith—dark­ness wins. Health is not just the ab­sence of dis­ease; it is the pres­ence of jus­tice.

The sto­ry of Di­vali—of Ra­ma’s re­turn and the light­ing of lamps —is ul­ti­mate­ly about com­mu­ni­ty. When Ay­o­d­hya lit its mil­lions of deyas to wel­come Ra­ma home, it was an act of col­lec­tive joy, of uni­ty. That same spir­it is what our na­tion needs.

In a time when traf­fic, crime and cyn­i­cism dom­i­nate the head­lines, we are starved of light. Crime sta­tis­tics rise as em­pa­thy de­clines. Cor­rup­tion steals not just mon­ey but hope. And every night, some­where in Trinidad, a fam­i­ly grieves be­cause vi­o­lence claimed an­oth­er young life.

Just as oil fu­els the deya, truth must fu­el our in­sti­tu­tions. We can­not claim to be a na­tion of light while keep­ing the poor in dark­ness.

Sci­ence and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty of­ten meet at sur­pris­ing in­ter­sec­tions. Light—the cen­tral sym­bol of Di­vali —is al­so at the heart of mod­ern med­i­cine. We use it to see with­in the body (X-rays, CT scans), to ster­ilise and heal (ul­tra­vi­o­let light ther­a­py, pho­tother­a­py for new­born jaun­dice) and even to save lives through surgery.

In the same way that a deya il­lu­mi­nates the night, sci­ence il­lu­mi­nates the mys­ter­ies of dis­ease. But both re­quire care­ful tend­ing. A lamp burns on­ly as long as it is fu­elled. Sci­ence thrives on­ly when sup­port­ed—through re­search, ed­u­ca­tion, and re­spect for truth over pol­i­tics.

Let us not for­get that dark­ness grows where ig­no­rance is re­ward­ed and ex­per­tise is ig­nored. When we side­line our sci­en­tists, when we dis­miss doc­tors as com­plain­ers, when we cel­e­brate style over sub­stance, we dim our na­tion­al flame.

Pub­lic health, at its core, is about bring­ing light where there is dark­ness. Every vac­ci­na­tion cam­paign, every dengue warn­ing, every men­tal health out­reach is a small deya against dis­ease and ne­glect. But those lamps must be lit again and again with pol­i­cy, with fund­ing and with lead­er­ship. On­ly when truth shines through the cor­ri­dors of pow­er will the na­tion be­gin to heal.

Every cit­i­zen, every health­care work­er, every par­ent can be a keep­er of that flame.

When you com­fort a pa­tient, when you do­nate a meal, when you choose for­give­ness over bit­ter­ness—you are prac­tis­ing med­i­cine of the soul. Di­vali is not one night of bright­ness; it is a life­long pre­scrip­tion for em­pa­thy, courage and re­new­al.

As deyas glow across the land this Di­vali, let them re­mind us of what tru­ly mat­ters—not the size of our cel­e­bra­tion, but the depth of our com­pas­sion. Let us build a so­ci­ety where no one is left in the dark — not the poor, not the sick, not the lone­ly.

May we light not just our homes, but our hearts.

May we heal not on­ly our bod­ies, but our na­tion’s con­science.

And may the flames we kin­dle out­shine every shad­ow that di­vides us.

Shubh Di­vali, T&T—may light, love and heal­ing al­ways find you.