The festival of Lights has returned again. I along with my bro and parents happened to go around the city quite a lot this diwali. And one thing that we all noticed is the relative decrease in the amount of crackers that were being burst this time around. And thankfully this time more people seem to have realised its a festival of lights and not exactly a festival to scare the daylights.
My memory of Diwali of the yester years is not a pleasant one. I think I was around 10 or 12 years old. It was the morning after Diwali. A house was being built in the neighbouring compound. One of the labourers stayed in this house under construction doubling up as a watchman. He had a huge family consisting of his wife and around 7 or 8 children. The older kids worked as labourers. But there were also these tiny tots, around 4 or 5 years old who played amidst all the construction work. Not the ideal place for kids to grow up but that was the reality of developing India.
The morning after Diwali, these kids went around the neigbouring streets collecting the half burnt, unburnt crackers from the streets. They collected all the chemicals in these crackers into a coconut shell and lit it hoping it would be a nice cracker. Little did these kids realise that their cracker was going to burst immediately and right in their face. The loud burst and the wailing of these kids brought us all outside immediately. We saw these kids running and hugging their mother. The poor mom not realising the gravity of the scene, used her dirt ridden sari to wipe the face of her children. The severely burnt skin on their faces just came off !!!
The scene when we saw it was these two kids who have dark colored skin, now had pink faces. Their faces with no skin and the flesh showing was one of the most gory scenes of my childhood. The very thought brings back images of those wailing kids. A truly horrible scene. Since then, I have never ever wanted to light a cracker.
This year too, the newspaper reports say that close to 100 people have been injured due to crackers. Infact many of the victims these time were innocent bystanders. I did meet a small kid who was walking along with his parents in Commercial Street when some kids burst some crackers on Commercial street and one of the crackers burst and some fragments hit the poor kid burning his shirt, neck and hair. I can only imagine the trauma the kid must have undergone.
I hope and pray not many have to watch such heart rending scenes, and that too on the occasion of a festival.
Happy Diwali !!!!
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5 comments:
Hey, Diwali is not that bad.Its a festival where all the loved ones come together and have a great time.So i hope that from next diwali,you forget all your bad memories and have a great time.
Reini: Yes, Diwali is not bad at all. I definitely dont mind getting together with all the loved ones. But do we need those loud crackers for that ? We wouldn't even be able to hear our loved ones. :)
Yes. me looking forward to the festival of lights.... but not to the festival of sounds. :))
Totally agree with you on the noise aspect. This year we had a relatively peaceful Diwali. Sustained campaigning and educating school kids seem to be paying off. I love the festival of lights and it should remain that instead of becoming a festival of cacaphony!
Thanks for dropping by my blog.
btw didn't understand the answer to the question posed in an earlier post. Why does the drilled part turn square in shape?
Its true,diwali the festival of lights ,also gets along with such accidents at times,and usually its the poor kids who happen to come across such incidents!and the amount of pollutiong the crackers do is more horrific!hope ppl soon realise it and reduce the crackers as much as possible!
and now i know one of the reason why you siad you dint burst crackers:)
silverine: Thanks for dropping by too. I must admit you have a wonderful flair for writing. And ofcourse 'aapka creativity laajawab hain'.
vinutha: Thanks for dropping by. I agree with you, kids from poor families are the usual victims in such accidents. But I think rather than blame it on the poverty issue, its fairer to blame it on irresponsible parents, irrespective of their economic class.
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