There’s a peculiar kind of silence that descends on the night of Amavasya, one that feels both ancient and intimate—as though the universe itself is pausing, exhaling slowly in remembrance of all that is unseen. I remember that silence most vividly from a night in February 2021, though I didn’t realize then that it would etch itself into my memory as deeply as it has.
It began with the sky. The stars were clearer that night, no longer shy behind a moon’s brilliance. The absence of the moon didn’t feel like a loss; rather, it felt like the earth had closed its eyes to listen. And in that listening, I found myself back in my grandmother’s courtyard, the scent of neem smoke curling through the air, mingling with turmeric and the earthy dampness that followed our hurried cleaning of the house earlier that morning.
Our home was always busier on Amavasya. Unlike the festivals that invited feasts and laughter, Amavasya brought with it a quieter urgency. The floors were scrubbed clean, lamps were lit early, and the elders whispered prayers with a solemnity that made us, the children, instinctively hush our games. It wasn’t sadness—it was reverence.
I remember helping my grandmother lay out the sesame oil lamps near the tulsi plant. She would hand me each diya with a kind of ritualized grace, her bangles chiming like temple bells. “On Amavasya, the ancestors listen more closely,” she told me once, her eyes fixed on the flame she had just coaxed to life. “And in this quiet, we offer them light.”
In February 2021, I found myself returning to that ritual after years of living in a city where the stars were drowned by neon and nights moved too fast for reflection. The pandemic had pulled me back home, away from concrete calendars and into a rhythm that felt both unfamiliar and deeply remembered. My parents had aged more than I’d noticed in calls and video chats, and the house carried a silence that was once filled by my grandmother’s voice.
That particular Amavasya, I woke up early. The air was cold, tinged with the remnants of winter. My mother had already drawn rangoli at the entrance, a delicate spiral of rice flour and haldi powder that looked like it could flutter away if you breathed too hard. She hadn’t said much that morning—just handed me the broom and gestured toward the porch. Cleaning was an act of devotion that day, not a chore.
Later, as twilight dipped into night, we lit lamps the way my grandmother used to. My hands were less practiced, the wicks clumsy under my fingers. Still, when the flames caught, a flicker of warmth spread through my chest. The scent of sesame oil and camphor curled around the air, and for a moment, I could almost hear her anklets in the hallway.
There is something hauntingly tender about Amavasya—the way it forces you to notice absence. Not just the moon’s, but of those who once sat beside you during the prayers, those whose laughter once filled the kitchen. And yet, this absence isn’t hollow. It’s full of memory, of presence that lingers in rituals passed down and quietly observed.
In our tradition, Amavasya is a time to honor the Pitrs—the ancestors. It’s a night when the veil between the worlds thins, when the living reach out through food offerings and mantras, hoping that the departed find peace. My father performed the tarpan that evening with careful, measured gestures. He didn’t say much, but I could see it in his eyes—the silent accounting of names and faces, the griefs long buried, the blessings quietly received.
As I watched him, I remembered something my grandmother had said long ago: “We light lamps not to chase away darkness, but to invite peace into it.” That idea stayed with me long after the flames had dimmed. It transformed Amavasya from a night of emptiness into one of presence—a sacred pause in the noise of life, where remembrance becomes its own kind of prayer.
It wasn’t always this poetic to me. When I was younger, Amavasya was more superstition than sentiment. The adults would warn us not to sleep under trees or wander off after dark. They’d sprinkle water in corners and speak of spirits as if they were neighbors. But beneath those warnings was a worldview shaped by humility—an understanding that life and death were part of the same cycle, and that both deserved respect.
In February 2021, the world was still reeling from loss. The pandemic had made grief a shared language. I think that’s why Amavasya struck me differently that year. It wasn’t just about ritual anymore—it was about connection, across time, across distance. The diya in my hand felt like a bridge, flickering gently between then and now, between my world and my ancestors’.
Later that night, after the prayers, I sat outside under the dark sky. The wind was quiet, the trees unmoving. I closed my eyes and tried to listen—not for anything in particular, but just to be still in that quiet. And in that stillness, I didn’t feel alone. I felt held—by memory, by tradition, by something greater than I could name.
That was the gift of amavasya feb 2021: not just the rituals, not even the memories, but the silence that taught me to listen. In a world that rarely stops, Amavasya reminds us of the sacred in stillness. Of the voices we carry, even when they’ve gone. Of the light we kindle, not for display, but for remembrance.
It’s easy to lose these small rituals in the noise of modern life. But some nights—the moonless ones, especially—ask us to return. To remember the stories whispered under flickering lamps. To honor the hands that taught us how to light them. To find comfort not in brightness, but in the quiet that lets us feel.
And maybe that’s why, even now, whenever the moon disappears and the stars burn a little brighter, I find myself looking up—listening.
