Diwali holds a special place in our lives. Undoubtedly it is the most important festival of Hindus all over the world. A festival of lights and a celebration of victory of good over evil. A celebration of home-coming and family time. There are many other associations as well and all of them make Diwali even more special for all people of our society.
One important ceremony of Diwali is burning crackers and we have loved it from years now. In fact all I remember of my childhood about Diwali is the excitement to burn crackers. The more you burn, the more prosperous you look. That’s how it has worked all the time- the parents get it, kids love it.
We heard some groups in media pleading for not burning crackers for different reasons but all this never made much sense. How can we not burn crackers? Why not when we can afford it?
But all this changed this year. Our lovely daughter – Siddhi, who is a chatterbox all the time and is the most noisy person in our family went silent this Diwali. In fact this whole week has gone in a mood of terror. She is extremely scared of the noisy crackers, to such an extent that she even refused to see them!
It was heartbreaking to see this as a tradition of years broke this time. We had some crackers in the house but didn’t burn anything. On Choti Diwali ( a day before Diwali) only she got so terrified that she got fever and nausea in the night. Our whole night went in consoling her that the crackers will not hurt her and we will protect her.
Siddhi who strongly believes that “Hanumaan ji” has given her special powers because she drinks milk-completely gave-up to the sound of crackers. Most of her Diwali was spent either hugging me or her mother or grandmother. After going through all this all that request from some groups to ban crackers started making sense.
Burning cracker and firework may be a lot of fun for those who do it. But it also causes discomfort and terror to many others. I googled and realized that there are many others like Siddhi who have their biggest nightmare of the year – Diwali! Many kids cannot take the blasting sound of crackers. Many animals like Dogs, cats. Birds, etc have very hard time to adjust to all this. In fact many lose their life on the night of Diwali.
Added to the sound pollution another monster of Diwali is the Air pollution. It is seriously harmful, I read that the pollution level was at all times high this Diwali. Toxic particles, SO2 peak to dangerous levels on Diwali night in Delhi
We all felt the burning eyes yesterday night, imagine the kind of impact this polluted air will do to our lungs and small kids who have no option but to breathe the sa
me air we are polluting. We can help with saying no to crackers from now on. At least our family will do it for sure, what started this year will continue now.
Siddhi asked this question yesterday, with tears in her eyes that, “Why Diwali is so Noisy?” because this festival was not that much fun for her. My request to all those who are reading my blog to support the cause of No-Crackers from next year onwards for all the people and kids out there for whom Diwali is not so much fun. Let’s make our Diwali not so noisy!
Please share if you know something similar or if you have celebrated Diwali in a different way this time.