Come to our home today and you’ll be greeted with an array of colourful candle lights at the porch, flickering in the light breeze sending enticing morse code-like messages of celebration to everyone in the vicinity. Like me, a billion other Hindus across the globe are celebrating Diwali, the festival of lights. Historically, it signifies the return of King Rama to his kingdom, where he was guided during nightfall by a path of candle lights, as laid out by his citizens. Symbolically, ’light’ represents all that is good and virtuous, dispelling the darkness of our world. As a human race, this lesson rings impeccably true when we collectively take a stand against evils like terrorism, slavery or genocide.

However, this simplistic view of "Light vs Dark" and "Good vs Evil" becomes rather fruitless in my everyday ordinary life. I face choices that are never clear-cut. Choices like, “Is this the right person?”, “Should I invest here?” and “Who shall I vote for?” baffle me. Thankfully, this confusion only stems from an absolutist perspective - that something or someone is inherently good (the light) or bad(the dark), period. In actual fact however, light and dark are nothing but matters of our relative perception. What is considered good and virtuous for one person or time, may not be for another person or time. Taken from this angle, light and dark do not oppose one another; instead, they are in a state of constant interplay.