Copyright © 2011 Jaideep Ranade

Come every October is the Indian festival of Lights. It is a five day festival, signifying the triumph of good over evil within an individual. If you want an exact definition, Diwali is the celebration of this inner light, in particular the knowing of which outshines all darkness (removes all obstacles and dispels all ignorance), awakening the individual to one’s true nature, not as the body, but as the unchanging, infinite, immanent and transcendent reality. With the realization of the Atman comes universal compassion, love, and the awareness of the oneness of all things (higher knowledge). This brings Ananda (inner joy or peace).

It’s funny, even if a bit sad that I found the meaning of Diwali on a wiki page after watching it being celebrated all around me for a quarter of a century. Realization of inner light is supposed to bring peace and joy, and Diwali is a celebration of that, but in all of my twenty-five years, I have never felt that. To me, Diwali has always been a mindless session of multicoloured, blinking lights and loud firecrackers.

I am no Grinch; I do not object to people celebrating. I do not mind the lanterns and the lamps. I do not mind the food and the sweets. I do not mind the fireworks displays. What I do mind, though, is the noise. What I do mind is being rudely woken up at one in the morning because some blithering idiot wanted to burst particularly loud crackers to celebrate the realization of his inner light, and do so again at five in the morning. What I do mind is reading about fires at firecracker factories killing tens of people, or about people’s clothes catching fires while playing around with them. What I do mind is trees, houses, cars burning down because the ‘rocket’ variety crackers didn’t fly right. What I do mind is waking up the next stinky, smoky morning to find tonnes of firecracker litter all over the roads and footpaths.

Where in the definition of Dipavali (row of lamps) do firecrackers come in? Where in that definition does it mention that you should make lots of noise that can raise the dead at ungodly hours? Where in the definition does it mention that you can kill people or set things afire as enjoyment of the festivities? What part of the definition states that you should bring out your inner light as sound?

Religious festivals like Diwali and Ganesha Chaturthi have become exactly like the religion they belong to: misinterpreted and decadent. The religion these festivals come from are full of idiots with twisted notions of right and wrong who think they are the ones meant to interpret the meaning of the religious text passed down by word of mouth for generations; of power-hungry freaks who wilfully misconstrue the meaning of already corrupted content to suit their own needs. The festival of Diwali has become but a shadow of what it was meant to be, with this custom of lighting 80dB bombs late in the night. I mean, I can understand the lure the visual displays and fancy patterns they generate, but I cannot understand people’s attraction towards hearing exceptionally loud farts every few seconds for hours on end. It benefits no one.

I could spout reasons for you not to buy crackers. I could tell you of all the child-labour. I could tell you about the pollution. I could tell you of the all the dead people, of the fires and explosions, of all the suffering and trouble surrounding this custom. But you know what: I don’t care about all that. Sure, in a general sense, in some deep down place in my heart I feel for all this, but that’s not the overriding reason I hate this festival of lights.

I hate Diwali because it is just bloody annoying.

I hate Diwali because the people who celebrate it in this insensible, overly-loud way are imbeciles.

Oh, I don’t mind the sweets. I don’t mind the lights. I don’t mind the decorations. I don’t mind the parties. All I mind is the custom which supports mindless cretins bursting crackers at whatever time they jolly well feel like. I have some sane advice for those vacuous, cracker-busting, insipid retards: take a large cracker, push it up your ass and light it. Silencers always help.

Boy, do people think I complain a lot! They think I am a sad little fella who doesn’t know how to enjoy life. What’s a few days of noise, yeah? What a few days of senseless, ear-splitting, heart-bursting, music, interspersed with loud crackers, yeah? Relax, go deaf, and enjoy the asininity of the whole exercise. It’ll build character. Well, I have some sage advice for people who think that: jump off a tall building. That’ll build real character, momentarily.

And this loud habit isn’t limited to Diwali either. You’ll find it observed in weddings, after cricket matches India wins, when politicos make a social call, when a new shop is opened, in fact, whenever anything happens, there’s a good chance somewhere some monumental moron will be bursting crackers.

Wake up. Open your eyes. There’s no grace, no aesthetics in sounds that go bang. There’s no purpose, no reason for existence of such a mindless custom. You may think you’re living life when you burst crackers, but all you are doing is killing yourself, bit by bit. So wake up, listen to the sounds, smell the sulphur, and open your eyes to the truth. Think why this tradition was started, think about the necessity of continuing with some aspects of it in this day and age. Don’t stick to the past and follow things thoughtlessly like the shit trailing a goldfish.

I may complain, but who’ll listen? Because come next Diwali, who’s going to remember the whining of one little kid? Who’s going to remember this little piece of writing before going to the shop and buying a year’s salary worth of firecrackers to raise the dead who died while being forced to make them? Who’s going to remember those empty ramblings of a concerned boy trying to raise awareness among people? The pollution will disperse. The smell will go in a few hours because you’ll get used to it. Well, come next Diwali, remember these words:

Live life moving forward. Don’t leave it behind.

–

Seriously,

-jdranade