Crackers and Crackpots

I do like Diwali, very much, whatever the title may read. I love the lights, the sparklers, the rockets, the fireworks, the bombs. I set off a lot of them this time. I love the lights, the diyas in almost every house, lighting it up and making it a home. It is a happy festival. Along with christmas. I feel happy during diwali, almost everyone is happy. This festival spreads joy and it's really infectious. It is celebrated across India with great fervour irrelevant of caste, creed or religion.

  But every this festival also gives birth to set of crackpots every yeaar. Every festival, some smartass will think he/she is a superhero/ine and try to set off crackers in a unique way, which will most definitely do damage to someone's property and rarely, a human being. Rarely because most Indians are prepared and take adequate precautions. Sometimes, an unfortunate bugger gets caught unknowingly by these crackpots bursting crackers.

  Like, for example, I saw this bunch of men..Men!! mind you...put a huge green bomb (well..if you're Indian, you'll know which one I'm referring to) under an empty coconut shell. When the thing bursts, it generally shatters the shell and sets off the coconut pieces in a random directions, the only was to escape it is to lie down and keep your face covered. Except when you don't know about it, then the incident may leave you with nightmares about coconut shell monsters. Another one is setting off a rocket horizontally. If an unfortunate family has left the door open, then they might think that an extremely fast snake is out to get them. Another one involves holding a cracker till it is very close to bursting and then throwing it in the air. This really catches many people off their guard. If you see anyone flinching when you raise your hand to your head, he/she has diwalitisis and been scarred by such an incident. Every diwali, there are a bunch of these with more stupid things they innovate. I did these too...except when I was young, we burst crackers in a huge ground and we all did it turn by turn and it was not really close to any homes or people on streets. Now, with lack of space and every street littered with small, medium, luxury, hatchback cars and SUV's. there is no open space left to burst the crackers and people make do with the space they have, leading to the crackpot persona emerging out of most benign personalities.

  But everything, the late night "10,000 wala" bursting when one has to sleep. The loud crackers at 1.30 in the morning, the loud yells in excitement a every burst, the diwalititis is all forgiven in the spirit of diwali the crackpots are ignored or at most a glare is given. Well, I love diwali , but I am glad it lasts for 3 days only. I need sleep and I have to get to work at 9:00 and I don't really feel very forgiving at 1.00 in the night. I feel more forgiving till about 10.30, it's all downhill from there. There is no good excuse for making such a din at that time of the night.Except at diwali. Then there's no need for an excuse. Then it's perfectly acceptable. Sigh! crackpots.

    Hope you all had a Happy Diwali and hope you have a great year ahead. :)