Pages

Thursday 27 October 2011

Diwali


A cycle rickshaw narrowly misses a collision with a
Roman candle

Diwali. Definitely my favourite Indian festival yet. The biggest festival in the Indian calendar, there is the same kind of hype and excitement over Diwali as there is over Christmas at home. Long strips of coloured lights are hung from rooftops and balconies, the shops are piled to the rafters with Indian sweets and temporary markets are erected selling candles of every colour, shape and size, decorations, nuts and dried fruits and…kitchen equipment. I never quite worked out the reason for the kitchen equipment, perhaps it’s just the most popular gift du jour or maybe families want to impress visiting relatives with their new set of matching plates, kettle and toaster.

Diwali is the festival of light, which in India means fireworks, which in India also means earth shatteringly loud, hold onto your newly bought kitchen equipment, teeth rattling explosions. They started about a week ago and steadily built to a crescendo last night, Diwali night. It reminded me of bonfire night at home only a thousand times more chaotic, the whole sky erupting with showers of pink, green, blue, white and purple interspersed with atom bomb style explosions and what sounds like rounds of artillery fire going off but is actually lines of firecrackers being lit in the street, usually casually thrown into the path of an unsuspecting motorcyclist or passer-by. I love fireworks but at points even I got a bit nervous, particularly when my neighbours on the rooftop behind me seemed to have eschewed the idea that fireworks should point upwards and lit them so that showers of blue sparks were arching over and onto the top of my terrace. My favourite moment was watching the family next door using the busy road as their firework launch pad. The father of the family methodically and with great ceremony went back and forth with a lit torch, from the house into the middle of road, to light what seemed to be an interminable supply of fireworks. Roman candles and rockets went shooting up into the air as mopeds, cycle rickshaws and pedestrians swerved just in time to avoid them and the family looked on from the side-lines.

No comments:

Post a Comment