தீபாவளி - Let the Celebration Begin..!

Deepavali (I hate calling it Diwali), one of my favorite, exciting, colorful, fun festival. I really enjoy this festival as much as anything. And, the only festival I look forward to every year when I was a kid. This post is on how Deepavali was some years before and how it is now for me.

In school days, we would start preparing for Deepavali even before a month. It was fun, all our discussion will be on crackers alone.We usually start with getting the price list of crackers from all crackers shop and start selecting our crackers. The best part of that list preparation is selecting one "Fancy" item from the cracker's list. We will have no idea of what it does, we will decide by its fancy name like "Missile Launcher". This preparation will go on for weeks and finally our parents will buy us on their own without even looking at our list :(. But we will forget all those lists once we see the crackers, it's the usual story every year.

The one-week before Deepavali will be spent visiting each and every one's house of our friends to look at the crackers they have got. And, our daily hobby is to take a look at those crackers and to decide at what time each and every cracker should be burst. Don't tell me we were polluting, I guess there are so many other ways out there that can be followed in other 364 days of the year, which we are not.

On Deepavali there will be a small competition on who wakes up first and starts bursting. Mostly one of my friends will be the first every year and he will start with "Krishna vedi" (according to him Krishna is the reason behind this festival, so it will be only fair to start with that :)) as a sentiment. I will usually start with "Saravedi", no reason behind it though. The whole day will be spent only in crackers. We will have a specific cracker for every hour.

All these fun was during my school days. It was all over now. In recent years Deepavali is not the same. It is just yet another day where we will wear new dresses and may go for any new release. It has lost it's charm now, as we get old. Nowadays it's mostly spent sitting home and watching those useless Deepavali special programs in TV.

Deepavali should not be like this. Deepavali should be celebrated. With all your family and friends, enjoying crackers, wishing each and every one you see in your street, praising your neighbour's dresses, sharing the sweets prepared, having a nice breakfast and lunch together with family. This is how Deepavali should be and it was before some years, but now, we are too lazy to even celebrate something.

Wish you all a "Happy Deepavali". Let's Celebrate..!!