Growing up in a conservative Hindu household, I was surrounded by ritual in its most traditional form.

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The scent of incense curling into the kitchen.
Brass bells ringing sharp into the morning.
My mother and grandmother’s voices rising in unison—chanting mantras at dawn and dusk.
Aartis. Hymns. Offerings.
A sense of rhythm, of duty, of devotion.

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But even then—wrapped in the comforting sounds and smells of my childhood—something in me didn’t quite enter the space they were in.

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I saw these rituals not just as spiritual acts, but as part of the unspoken choreography of womanhood in our culture:
The “good woman,” the “dutiful wife,” the keeper of the flame.

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And so I turned away.
Not out of rebellion, really.
But out of a quiet refusal to let someone else’s script define my reverence.

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For years, I thought I had no rituals of my own.

But when I began to notice what I missed when it was gone—what made me feel rooted, safe, seen—I realized I did have rituals. Just not the ones I had been taught to recognize.

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Each evening, just as the sky began to dim, my grandmother would light a small brass lamp at the threshold of our home.
She never called it prayer.

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“It’s for the house,” she’d say. “So it knows we’re still here.”

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No mantras. No formal offering. Just the soft clink of a matchstick, the scent of warm oil, and her quiet presence by the door.

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I didn’t understand it then—only that something stilled in the air when she did it.

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That practice followed me like a shadow across cities.

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Years later, I find myself lighting a candle before I write.
Not because I believe it will summon clarity or divine inspiration.
But because she believed spaces needed tending before anything could be born inside them.

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It isn’t quite her ritual.
But it carries her stillness.
Her love.

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And perhaps that’s what ritual really is—not just a lineage to inherit, but a language we learn to speak in our own way.

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Over time, I’ve come to recognize the quiet repetitions that anchor me:

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The ritual of movement—waking my body with breath and sweat, as though reminding myself I’m still here.

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The act of making my bed when the world feels messy.

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A little something sweet after lunch—offered like a secret promise to my inner child: there will still be joy.

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These aren’t rituals I was taught.
They’re ones I’ve gently made.

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Not for gods.
Not for tradition.
But for myself.

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Repetition, I’ve come to realize, is not always discipline.

Sometimes, it’s devotion.
Sometimes, it’s remembrance.
Sometimes, it’s the daily act of choosing yourself—again and again—with love.

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And somewhere, somehow, over time—
That repetition becomes ritual.

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