Diwali 2009

It must be because of my upbringing, my days spent at Bhagalpur, but the festival of lights is something that I really cherish and wait for the whole year. The story behind celebrating diwali is equally interesting, I have loved Ramayana since my childhood days. But I feel that the combined effect of cleaning house, shopping, placing diyas, doing the puja and bursting the crackers really light the festival for me :-)
And so this year too, we spent one full day shopping and then cleaning the house. And Kush had a whale of time lighting his sparklers and then running to hide himself when a bomb was lighted. But the best of show came around 10 PM, when a gentleman decided to entertain the society public. He had these big boxes, which on lighting up sent numerous rockets up which would burst in the air sending bright sparkles all around. Add the sound of a big gun going everytime a rocket would be forced on its journey up and then imagine the chaos of sound and light and smoke filling in the air,reducing everything to becoming a spectator. It was fun when the first box was lighted up, it became torture after 5th one and the 7th one had completely lost its charm. It was like we just wanted some respite from the light and sound show. And then the next morning, we saw the field littered with torn pieces of paper and remains of crackers and the big boxes. What a waste !!!