Diwali’s round the corner!!!!!!!!! I just love this festival. I just love the lights. Everybody is happy for once. You normally see people scowling away, in markets, buses, trains, roads, muttering, but during this time, everybody is ready to live and let live. Scuffles are generally diffused more quickly. At night the view is just heavenly, the fairy lights from all around winking at you. The market place is a just a crazy place to be with all the chaos and diwali shopping. But, it has a charm of its own. Unfortunately, in Mumbai, diwali is not such a lavish affair (well, I don’t know about entire mumbai, but I can definitely vouch for south mumbai!), u don’t normally see the market places all decked up with lights at night. In north, it’s a different story. You just can’t recognize the place during diwali, so many stalls are put up and the shopkeepers go nuts with the lights. All the possible buildings are covered with lights from top to bottom. And I miss the sweets. Ya, ya, you do get sweets here, but I am very particular about Indian sweets. I want the sugar content to be just perfect, not too much & not too less and the kind of sweets I prefer are typical north Indian which obviously aren’t available here.
Then there are the little kids going around *bang bang * with their toy pistols. Most of the times it’s irritating, but diwali won’t be diwali without these little rugrats! Besides I did do my share of * bang, bang* when I was little. It’s been years since I last burnt firecrackers. I still don’t endorse them. Sure they look pretty at night, but the ruckus they cause just ain’t worth it. Besides, it’s the festival of lights not noise & air pollution or “let’s encourage working little kids to death”. I remember the time when anti-crackers campaign hadn’t hit big-time & the visibility in the evening would reduce to just 10-15m. That’s worse than the foggy winter mornings! You had to put a handkerchief around the nose to go out. Instead what I think should be done is that there should be a collective fireworks display, it would cause less pollution & the show would be much more spectacular. A nominal amount can be charged for the funds. If the funds are sufficient, we can even switch to the pyrotechnics where they don’t actually use fireworks. I saw something of the kind long time back. I can’t seem to remember the exact name given to the thing. Anyway, if this is not feasible & you HAVE to spend the money, it’s just more advisable to light up a matchstick & burn it. It will cause much less pollution. &You will be literally burning money! & How about donating to some good charity organization? I am sure they can use it. However, there are a lot of money grabbers out there who are just sitting there to take advantage of the good will during the festive season. Anyway, my advice is to actually go to the old age homes, or homes for the destitute or something along those lines and spend some time there. Doesn’t matter if it’s only an hour. Your one-hour will certainly mean something to them. You would be amazed at how little they actually want.

Here’s wishing you all a very Happy Diwali.*sigh*, I sound like a hallmark greeting card!!!!!! Maybe I should add “& a Happy New Year” too. I am not only bored but I have a writer’s block too!