next morn...

The sun was glorious the next day as i was finally even. When small and for some now even now, there's a feeling that the world moves only when we are present. A particular lane, a street or even parts of a city come alive as we walk through it. The remaining times they just remain still.Like statues. I too felt like that when i used to go on my long walks through the colony to the house of one of my sardar frnd who was as animated as mickey mouse on seeing me, like someone had just pushed the ON button behind him. Diwali was nearing and for the people of delhi diwali means spending a year's savings on one night of fireworks. It was always about who had the largest number of fireworks. Some of my rich frnds used to buy it for more than a lakh and that was 15 years back. Imagine today!!They would burn only a quarter of it and the rest would be given as charity to kids like me who celebrated diwali on a smaller scale and whose parents had some sense not to burn off hard earned money. The view of the delhi night sky during diwali is astounding. There's no night sky!!!Just white clouds and the smell of burned paper. Now celebrations here begin a fortnight before the festival with kids burning firecrackers throughout the day. This animated frnd of mine and his group of frnds used to be in the park always playing with the masala or powder inside the crackers and burning those too. when i reached his home noone was to be found. I later came to know he was in the ICY with only a chance he would regain his eyesight. The masala he was trying to burn had not lighted properly. when he went to check on it closely, it suddenly burst into his eyes. His eyes had been burned. But like they say, the spirit of Diwali remains with the brave. His face had patches and black spots everywhere but miraculously though his eyes were covered for 2 weeks, he regained his eyesight completely. But with that incident, my parents started buying me more crackers, afraid i would also start burning the masala if there wasn't enough of the original stuff for me to burn. Diwali had just found a new client.!!!