Deepavali - A Celebration of Death

The dawn of deepavali was more like being in a war zone, the blasting of the bombs and whistling of the rockets like missiles.

Past memories of deepavali , was helping the sivakasi cracker factory class mates ,burst and finish their trunk loads of fire works , that used to be sent to yercaud.

Kicking around the ground charkas and hurling the onion bombs on walls and sending love rockets to the girls on the other hillock .I was nervous of guns and still am .

Now divali seems more like bonus extorsion of money from the local sweeper, to the highway cops, and a mad rush to the clothes store.

The meanings of the festival has long been forgotten and its celebration of death misunderstood .

Between collage days and now,we had been taught to prevent child labour and to shun its nexus at the cracker level .we would like to do what we can to prevent the noise and child labour pollution.

Changes take time,for now it is best to flow with the tide and eat sweets and have a traditional oil bath and adorn new garments and burst crackers and do poojas, may be the traditions will get questioned by our children and theirs( as they ask questions which we have no answers for)and bring forth the truth of all our festivals in our wonderfull culture.

This festival is the celebration of Naragaasurans death.

One wise man split naragaasuran as

Nara ---human

Aga --- inside

Asuran---demonic entities

So it is the death of such forces and that is the celebration, with lights of enlightenment.

We lit lamps and passed the day with the buzz of the village and blessings of the neighbours and wishes of children .”happy deepaa oli”