Deepavali

In an early morning phone call I remarked to my friend, "The festival of fire-crackers", and she immediately retorted with, "Its more than that. What you are holding is a 14 year old's view, which clearly shows you've not grown up beyond that". I'm not offended, as it has always been and always will be a festival of fire-crackers for me. That's why there is no place on earth than India itself to be on this day. No sky on earth lit with so many sparkles, gong with so many sounds; No ground with so many lamps, surrounded with so much bright attire adorning such unbridled enthusiasms. Only gods could shower so much positive energy on entire [Indian] humanity at a single point in time. And people seem to not care much about the choking smoke all around.

The kids start the celebrations (the fire-crackers I mean) a little too early in the day, the young start at the dusk, the older-than-young a little later; but eventually all do join the party... Beyond the fire crackers, the festival element includes a puja (when I was a child, my mom used to insist we join her in the puja room but now she lets me be), umpteen oil lamps placed on every groove outside of the house that can hold a lamp, lot of food and sweet all day, all parking arrangements redone to accommodate much space for the cracker ceremony, and the entire community coming together in clusters- sometimes sharing the view of the cracker burst and other times bursting of them itself and much later for sharing of the sweets.

In my house it starts with the customary act- the grand old man (my grand-dad) of the house lighting the big ladi. Then he goes back to his big chair in the corner overseeing the act. As far as my memory goes, its been his onus to see to it that the fire-crackers act should last atleast for an hour and half, and that everyone is busy in the act always and also that they are not scared- you fiddle around with a 'hydrogen bomb' placed on ground a couple of times and it still doesn't light, you can sure expect a scream from him, "what the hell are you scared for, at your age we used to light them and throw them with our hands". (That scream was for my sister btw, I too can light and throw them with my hands)

My bro-in-law is teaching me what's the best way to fire a 'double sound' bomb while my sister is busy thinking of arrangements for lighting many flower pots at a single time and how beautiful it might look. My mom has saved her 'vishnu chakras' which she keeps lighting in intervals, the ones that you hold in your hand with a little stick while they twirl in fire, its damn thrilling and it sure needs courage to hold one; she is damn proud that its her favorite thing- I realize everyone's favourite almost remains the same since their childhood. My dad's lighting 'Ground chakras' and 'Lakshmi bombs' one after the other, somehow the range of firecrackers is limited to those two for him this year. But he has been asking us to start firing the rockets already. Parashuram, the 20yr old young man, my dad's business cum house help is aiding in continuously rearranging the inventory of fire-crackers and in intervals picking his stuff and lighting them himself; he sure has worn his favourite pair of clothes today, it shows in his face. Srihari, the tiny boy of the tenant comes to the floor bringing his packet of sparkles, flower pots and ground chakras but is clearly lost in the madness. He is about to go back when his mother also comes down and assures him its going to be fun. He and his elder sister keep taking the floor between us and they are beginning to get into the groove. But he still hates the ladis we keep firing.

This is nicely consuming all of us when all of a sudden we witness the first sky spectacle- A sound bang and sparkles fly in all directions forming an umbrella over your head. Its bright, the fall is slow and symmetric, a total magic how many ever times you might have witnessed it already. Before we digest the awe and turn back our heads, another one goes off this time throwing sparkles of different colours and like an umbrella opened flat on sideways. My mind goes to my 'special item' but no, I'm saving it for the last. Then I witness an uncanny thing, a latest invention in this area- a gas balloon styled, heart shaped, fire under a balloon flying in the sky. Someone prompts to me that its called 'Parachute' and it floats in the air as long as the fire lasts, and its drifting in the air amazingly.

Slowly now our festival seems to be nearing the end; Parashuram is staring down a bleak inventory of firecrackers and my dad tells him to leave a few for next door watchman's little son and take the remaining to his siblings at home, he packs them up carefully into two bags. While we are winding up our act, my dad has been cautioning us about washing our hands before we eat anything and carefully reminding us that we have to wait to eat the sweets until the grand old man eats the first one. Our marwari neighbour (whose house is lit today with a gazillion electric lamps) has sent us dry fruits and a Rasogolla tin box, both of which add to the lot of dishes my mom has made since morning.

We wash our hands, eat our sweets, some say their prayers and we are back in the living room. A deepavali that still hasnt ended as there is so much of sky to stare at while the real competition of who's got the best sky spectacle is going to last for a while. The city police commissioner has issued a notice to end the fire crackers by 10pm but this is not the only rule that people here have ignored as it conflicts with their joy.