As twilight falls, the scent of woodsmoke and marigolds drifts across open fields, and millions gather to watch giant effigies go up in flames. A cheer rises as the ten-headed king crumbles into ash, and the old story is told once more: good over evil.
It is a grand, comforting spectacle. But as I watch the embers rise against the dark this year, one question stays with me.
What happens when the fireworks stop?
If Dussehra remains an annual ritual, a story we watch from outside ourselves, we miss what it was always asking of us. Vijayadashami was never only the memory of an ancient battle. Read closely, it is a blueprint for the inner life: for self-mastery, and for clarity.
This year I would like to look past the pageant and sit with what the day holds for the one watching.
Reclaiming the inner Ramayana
In quiet hours, the epic seems to play out inside each of us, daily.
- The mind, subtle and clear, is Sita: our consciousness at its most luminous.
- The material world, with its golden deer, keeps luring our attention from what matters.
- When consciousness is held captive by ego and pride, Ravana rules.
Victory, then, is not the defeat of an outside enemy. It begins when our actions (Dharma) align with our deepest values (Rama), and when breath, devotion and focus (Hanuman) carry the mind back home to stillness.
The ten heads of the modern mind
Ravana was no caricature of simple evil. He was a scholar, formidable in intellect, power and devotion. And still all that learning could not save him, because he stayed a servant of his own unexamined nature.
His ten heads read like a map of our own distortions: unchecked desire, quick anger, greed, arrogance, jealousy, delusion, and the quiet apathy that looks away from injustice.
Intellect without character, and power without empathy, will always lead to ruin.
So I am asking myself to inspect my own ten heads. To burn the arrogant assumption that I already know. To burn the resentments I rehearse, the small jealousies, the fears that keep me from acting with grace.
Beyond the cycles of nature
Dussehra arrives only after nine nights of Navratri, a passage through the three qualities that shape experience:
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Tamas
: shaking off inertia, fear and passive habit.
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Rajas
: turning ambition and creative fire into purposeful, ethical action.
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Sattva
: seeking clarity, truth and quiet reflection.
On the tenth day we are invited to step beyond even these. We are not our passing moods, our failures, or our frantic days. We are the calm observer behind them.
Reverence for the tools of our craft
There is a quiet beauty in Ayudha Puja, the custom of honouring the instruments that let us build, create and serve: a pen, a computer, a vehicle, a painter's brush. To thank our tools is to remember that work, done well, is not a burden but a form of devotion.
What remains
When the effigies turn to dust tonight, I hope the spirit of the day does not stay behind on the fairground.
May we keep a Dussehra that lives within us on ordinary days: choosing empathy over pride, clarity over delusion, integrity over convenience. May we find the strength to meet our inner shadows, and walk on with a quiet, steady light.
Happy Vijayadashami.
What is one head, one habit, you are choosing to burn away this year?
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