Reminiscence of the Diwali Long Gone

The air quality in India has been nose-diving fast, especially in its cities. Various causes come together to make the impact multiply and the issue has come to haunt the common consciousness around this time of the year for past several years. Suffocating evenings and breath taking (not to be mistaken with breathtaking) mornings after the Diwali night has come to be the most explicit of all factors leading alarm bells to ring across conscious circles. There has been a concerted debate coming up around the use of firecrackers on Diwali for past several years.

This year’s Diwali approaches near, dragging with it the debate yet again. Various factions of concerned folks, like all previous years, have glued to their computers to send out their intellectual dispatches from both sides of the debate. Some propose a complete ban on use of firecrackers, considering it a good way to save the Mother Earth, while contributing their respective daily share of endless pollutants to the same Mother Earth in all ways possible. The others, sighting religious sentiments and traditions of a particular religious community, dutifully take up the stand at the other end

Taking no stands and intending not to put across my most insignificant of opinions, I rather take up to write, in the quiet of my reading room, dipped in nostalgia and reminiscence of the sublime years of my childhood.

I remember when I was growing up, more than two thousand kms eastward of the centre of this cartographic reality called India, where I am currently situated, Diwali was a festival of utmost anticipation. Amidst the greens and the blues of nature, pollution then was not much associated with Diwali, for we were rich enough to absorb locally whatever smoke we produced throughout the month leading to Diwali. Also we were smart and conscious enough not to indulge with the ear-robbing explosions till the late hours of the night. We respected the sleep cycle and the right to a peaceful environment of others while they reciprocated to the same in their own ways.

Yes! This is a picture I portray of a time in near history not more than twenty years back.

Trees around my home were greater in numbers, vehicles lesser and industries the least. Pollution then was still to find its space in the quotidian discourse. Firecrackers were more than just any other commodity for consumption. They were an inexpressible-in-words part of childhood. They were the parameter to measure Deuta’s love for me. They were the babies that were to be nurtured till the Diwali evening and even longer to the coming year.

Diwali then was not just an event of an evening but a warm tapestry weaved with excitement and anticipation for almost a week and more. Firecrackers were not just to be pulled out of a bag and lit-and-thrown. There was a grand and well charted out plan associated with the affair. Exactly twelve numbers of the flower pot, a bundle ( 24packs) of the red chilly crackers (jolokia bomb), a pack of the ground wheels, three packs of sparklers, some rockets and the most coveted and bought-only-if-fortunate, bigger bomb (forgetting the exact nomenclature) tied tightly with green threads were the essentials of even the most modest of preparations.

Buying them, I mind you was not just the end of it. What followed it was the herculean responsibility of nurturing them till the final evening. The life cycle of the crackers involved systematic counting of the same stock twice everyday (with absolutely no purpose whatsoever) till they depart to their heavenly abodes. They were to be put out on exhibition under the sun, laid spread over Aaita’s dressing-table stool (for which followed screaming that was just to be ignored). The justification for the sunbathing was that it would ensure the successful death-by-fire of each of them in the final battle. But the underlying strategy was to show them off to the friends in the neighbourhood who were unfortunately late in buying theirs.

Growing up in a middle-class family, struggling to meet the ends, firecrackers that I had at disposal had always been just the minimum, sometimes coming up only on the day before the festival. Amidst all financial constraints that he steered us through with his Midas touch, Deuta however made sure to positively take me to the market, boarded on his bicycle, each single year. Growing up in the restraints of a middle-class psyche also meant that a portion of the firecrackers from the year were to be held back for the coming year without defying the tradition of the previous years. In the consciousness of holding back stuff for the coming year I remember, I had been so meager on occasions that I actually didn’t use much of them in the year for which they were actually bought.

The prices of the good things kept growing up as I kept completing a year at a time, of the journey around the Sun. The attachment with the festival kept gradually fading away under the sweep of the CBSE curriculum and I failed to keep track of the exact year when I grew tall enough not to fit on the small seat attached to the pipe on Deuta’s bicycle.

It is now when I look behind, that my heart swells with grief on the failure to hold time still. It is now that I most curse the biological compulsion of growing up. But it is now, that I also appreciate the most, my lost childhood. I appreciate that I grew up in the quiet of the periphery of India where, away from the debate to have or not to have crackers, my childhood was sublime.

To be continued…

Uddipta Ranjan

Coming up next…

Fading Memory of Earthen Lamps






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