We grew up in an upper-middle-class family in Bombay but later moved 300 miles away south to Porvorim, a small town in Goa. We were this metropolitan family dropped into a community that was neither city nor village. We lived at the edge of town, and our home was the first habitable one in the area.
This being the edge of the town, there were no public amenities. There were no streetlights, and there was no electricity. We only had candles. In the evenings, these boys from Bombay, from that city full of light, would scamper home before dusk and we'd go around lighting the candles in all the rooms of the house. Later there were kerosene lamps, but in the beginning for at least a year, it was just candles.
And somewhere around then began a family ritual of lighting a candle whenever the family was in crisis. At a sign of difficulty, we would rally around our mother, Bernadette. No matter what the problem, my mother—forever the optimist—would firmly say that things would work out okay. And then she'd say, "Let's light the candle, sons."
We would gather around the dinner table, as Mother put a big candle on an overturned bottle and then lit the wick. We would say a small prayer and then go on our way, but the candle stayed lit in the center of our house to remind us that one of the family was in trouble and we were there with them. The candle would stay on, flickering until our moment of need had passed. Only then would Mother blow out the candle and say a quick prayer of thanks.
I think we first lit the candle when my brother was struggling in school and had to take a very important, make-or-break exam. When I was coming to America and waiting for my visa, my whole family prayed at the candle that I would make it through. During a major family financial crisis, Mother lit that candle—its flame burning bright, to show a family the way.
As the years passed and the family moved on—its four sons scattered across the seven seas and continents—the tradition spread, too. We grew to lean on that candle. When I was alone in America during my first year at Stanford, the transition to a new life and academic load came to a head one night. At 3 in the morning, I called my family across the ocean to tell them that I thought I might not make the cut, that I would have to come back home. I was fighting for my life, for the future I wanted in America. My parents both told me to hang on; and Mum, again that bountiful font of confidence, said she would pray and light the candle for me. I made it through that difficult night in Palo Alto thinking of a tabletop half a world away.
As my parents aged, the tradition of the candle slowly passed on to us children. When my dad was undergoing surgery in India, it was my turn to call him and Mother and say that things would be all right and, yes, we would light a candle—in my home in California and in my brother's home in New Jersey and in another brother's in British Columbia. When my wife went into labor at the hospital, a big, stodgy candle—one with fragrance and a proper holder sitting in a safe location on my kitchen countertop—burned for all the hours until the baby had been greeted.
When my mother passed away after a long battle with cancer, all her sons flew from around the world to be there. We made sure we had lots of candles—at the church, at the funeral, lots of candles everywhere, repayment of all the ones she lit for us. We were lighting the way with many candles, to see her through safely on her journey to the beyond.
GEORGE VIEGAS, MS '95, lives in Anaheim Hills, Calif.
