This year, our team and I wanted to do something a little different. We didn't just want to celebrate Diwali like we usually do. We wanted to understand why we celebrate it and what it actually means.
So, we decided to do some research.
Everyone on the team started exploring Diwali in their own way. We thought we'd find a few interesting stories, learn something new, and that would be it.
But what we found was much more interesting than we expected.
There wasn't just one story behind Diwali. Different parts of India had different stories and reasons for celebrating it. In Northern India, we came across one set of traditions, while in Southern India, we found others.
This confused us a little.
How could the same festival have so many different stories behind it? And if the stories were different, what was actually connecting them?
We kept digging.
One story led to another, and soon we started reading about other Indian festivals too. Then we became curious about festivals in different religions and cultures.
And that's when we noticed something strange.
Even though the stories were different, certain ideas kept appearing again and again.
In some traditions, people clean their homes before a festival. In others, people bathe as part of a ritual, observe fasts, reflect on their actions, ask for forgiveness, or prepare themselves for a fresh start.
The practices were different, and their religious meanings weren't necessarily the same. But we kept coming across a similar idea.
Cleansing. Purification. Letting go of something old and preparing for something new.
At first, we thought it was just a coincidence.
But the more we explored, the more we noticed this pattern.
What started as a simple question about Diwali had turned into a much bigger investigation.
For a few days, we almost forgot that we were a skincare company. We were busy discussing history, religions, rituals, and why people had been following these traditions for generations.
Eventually, we started to understand what had caught our attention.
People from very different cultures have found different ways to express a similar human need: to feel renewed, to move away from negativity, and to make a fresh beginning.
And that was a beautiful thing to discover.
We had started our research by looking at what made these festivals different. But along the way, we found something that connected them.
It also changed the way we looked at Diwali.
Until then, we'd mostly thought about Diwali through the things we normally associate with it: lights, decorations, sweets, gifts, family gatherings, and celebrations.
But now, we were thinking about something else too.
What if celebrating Diwali also meant taking a moment to look at ourselves?
To think about the habits we want to change, the negativity we want to leave behind, and the kind of person we want to become.
In a way, it felt like a form of self-purification.
And then we laughed at something.
Here we were, a skincare company, spending days trying to understand the meaning of cleansing in different cultures.
We work with the idea of cleansing every day, but we'd never really thought about it this way.
Of course, cleansing your skin and the spiritual idea of purification are two very different things. But discovering that connection made the whole experience feel unexpectedly personal.
We also started thinking about how festivals are celebrated today.
There's so much focus on shopping, gifting, offers, decorations, and everything surrounding the celebration. There's nothing wrong with enjoying those things.
But sometimes, in all that excitement, we forget to ask why these celebrations began and what they mean to us.
We aren't historians, and we certainly don't claim to have discovered the one true meaning of Diwali.
We were just a curious team trying to understand a festival better.
But that little investigation changed something for us.
Now, as Diwali approaches, we're excited not only to celebrate it but also to reflect on what we can change within ourselves.
And that's what we wanted to share.
Not a lesson. Not a religious explanation.
Just something beautiful we discovered while following our curiosity.
This Diwali, along with celebrating everything around us, we want to make a little space for cleansing and renewing what's within us.