Fire Crackers

They shoot up in the dark night sky, making a loud hissing sound. Form a pattern high up there for the world to see. Patterns that look like flowers, or showers. Transform their colours from red streaks to pink blobs to purple splashes. And then, they all disappear - the streaks, the blobs and the splashes - to leave just puffs of white smoke in their place. Fire works.

And there's the breed that works when the sky is lit up by the sun. Begin with a weak hissing sound, one that's short lived, just a harbinger to warn you. Warn you of the explosion that's in store. Then the blast. Could be just a singular loud noise or a multiple series of moderate noises. All one sees is delicate sparks interspersed between these noises. At the end of it all, they too leave just puffs of smoke rising from the ground to mid air to the heavens. Crackers.

Fire works and crackers are all over the place once again with Diwali. It reminds me of the days I used to burst crackers, be a part of the I-have-more-Laxmi-bombs-than-you clan. Fun days those were.

Shopping for Diwali meant shopping primarily for crackers. The jewellery, the clothes, the household material, the sweets could take a back seat. With all the enthusiasm, we used to stock ourselves with all the essentials.

At the primary level were the Sparklers, the ones that sparkle when you light them with candles, sometimes showing a strong resistance to light up. Also in this category fell the tapes, the thin, red strips of paper dotted with black noise making chemicals. We would load our new Diwali guns with the tapes and play chor-police all afternoon long till the end of the Diwali vacations. I would hide behind the tall, grey tank in the terrace in the hot sun, my feet burning on the hot terrace floor, but determined to be true to my race of chors! Then there were the other small range products like the snake, which never did any good to anyone but just left a lot of tar remains and a staircase reeking with noxious gases; the electric wire, which had no electric charge what so ever but just burnt with bright colours - the electric looking green and orange - while you held it in your hand.

The secondary level comprised those crackers which looked a lot more challenging to crack. It required alertness, to light them some distance away and flee the site to secure a safer place on earth, much safer where the fire from the crackers would not reach you and you could witness their marvel, giving you a satisfaction as though you were their creator. The flower pot fell in this category, which when lit showers sparks and fire from it's mouth that rise up in the air, to be taller than you and fall all at once like illuminated rain drops reaching the ground. There's also the jameen chakra, a gold-coin-with-a-tail like appearing fire cracker. The key was to light the tail and wait for the magic - how it spun round and round and round shooting fire from it's tail resulting in a circular labyrinth of fire. There were a few athletic characters who jumped over the sparks, probably to show how they had shunned all fear for fire and reached yet another stage of life.

Also here belonged many other noise making, neighbour waking crackers like the Taj Mahal, Lavangi, all of which had small packets of chemicals tied together so that when you lit one end of it, the blasts would continue to be heard in a series. Of course, there were a few like me whose main aim during Diwali was to make the crackers last, make them last till the very end, when no one else had any left and then burst them to be the object of envy of all. We would untie the Taj Mahal and the lavangi and burst it one at a time, making only minimal noise but serving the purpose - keeping everyone company during the bursting sessions as well as having bursting sessions when the rest weren't.

And, finally came the tertiary, uppermost level of fire crackers. These were the ones which wre reserved only for the big Dadas and Didis. Our parents would always say, when you grow as old as Neelu Didi you'll get those, not now. And how I yearned to be as old as Neelu Didi with every passing Diwali. These included the rocket, the ones which needed a glass bottle to perch them on. Lighting a rocket was a whole ritual in itself. First, the lucky Didi who could burst rockets would ensure that nobody else was lighting any other cracker at that point, then would decide the apt position for the bottle which would then hold the rocket. After checking and double checking, Didi would approach the rocket with her agarbatti and light it. Then in no time, she would rush to us, the ones not as lucky to burst rockets. And look upwards. Towards the skies and see the marvel. The beauty of the single stick like object with a cap transforming into many colours and shapes.

And also here belong the Laxmi bombs and the Atom bombs. The ones that require not just alertness but astute alertness. These are the ones that leave your ears shaken, once they burst there's a strange humming in your ears which refuses to hush up for at least a couple of minutes.

Ah, well. I reached all levels, including the didi lucky enough to burst crackers too. Realisation of the futility of the whole affair, the environment un-friendliness, freak accidents et al, later I've stayed away from the crackers. Feels good, must say.