The First Diya: Satsang (The Company of Truth)
Dadi struck the match, its sudden flare casting dancing shadows. As she lit the first diya, she began to chant softly:
“Pratham bhagati santan kar sanga” (प्रथम भगति संतन कर संगा)
The Sanskrit words seemed to vibrate in the small room. “The first form of devotion,” she translated, “is keeping company with those who embody truth.”
“Satsang,” Tarkik said, recognizing the word. “But Dadi, being around good people doesn’t prevent suffering. Arjun’s father was surrounded by good people.”
Dadi nodded, her face glowing in the lamplight. “You’re right. Satsang doesn’t prevent suffering—it transforms our relationship with it. Let me tell you about your great-grandfather, whom you never met.”
She paused, gathering memories like flowers. “During the freedom struggle, he was just a simple teacher in this very town. But he began attending meetings with freedom fighters—revolutionaries, poets, philosophers. Slowly, their company transformed him. Not into someone who feared suffering less, but into someone who understood suffering differently.”
“How?” Tarkik leaned forward despite himself.
“One day, the British police came to arrest him for teaching ‘seditious’ ideas—he had been reading Tagore’s poems to his students. As they led him away, his students wept. But he smiled and said, ‘This suffering has meaning. Through it, our children will breathe free air.'”
Dadi’s eyes grew distant. “He spent two years in jail. Hard labor, little food. But he said later that the company of other freedom fighters in prison—their satsang—gave him a framework to understand his pain. Not as meaningless cruelty, but as birth pangs of a new nation.”
“But that’s different,” Tarkik protested. “He chose that suffering. Arjun’s father didn’t choose to die.”
“True,” Dadi agreed. “But watch what happens now with Arjun. Who gathers around him? Family, friends, teachers—people who have also known loss. Their presence doesn’t remove his pain, but it prevents him from drowning in it alone. That is satsang—not a shield against suffering, but a transformation of isolation into connection.”
The first diya flickered as if in agreement, its light pushing back the darkness just a little.
NEXT: The Second Diya: Katha Prasanga (Love for Sacred Stories)
