Diwali:

I stand in my balcony and look down at the celebration of the festival of light and sound, with a greater emphasis on the later. I stand and cringe in apprehension as another cracker is about to fulfill its destiny.

What I see is not a group of kids none of whose names I know.. What I see is like a flashback of my own days. I am none of them, yet all of them at the same time.

It’s amazing this amazing festival has lost none of its holds in the years that have gone by.

Not much seems to have change, except of course the variety and “loudness” of the fire crackers. The groupings of kids are still the same. The youngest, along with their dads, while their mom’s look apprehensively at the whole thing from their balconies.

The slightly elder one, are in transition, so they want their dad’s support only in the form of their presence, and do not want them to fuss over them, because that would ruin their “reputation”. Even their dad’s are in transition, the expression on their face varies from concern to proud look, depending on the distance of their kids from the crackers.

The next group are completely on their own, their dad’s are no longer worried about them, their mom’s however still sneak in a quick peek from the balcony… that’s how mom’s are I guess.

Sorry forgot to mention the about the grouper, which is slightly younger than the youngest, well they just run back and forth with either their dad or elder sibling burst the crackers..

At one layer there is hardly any similarity in the days from my childhood and now, yet in another it’s as if nothing has changed.

One thing that has changed though is that somehow, the sounds of firecrackers have become noise from what they used to be to my ears.. music.

With that thought I make my way back to the balcony to breathe in smell in the air which can best be described as an “aftertaste” of crackers’ bursting or may be just as the smell form my “childhood”…