Saturday, October 17, 2009

A Post-Childhood Apology to the Old People of Yester Years




While i travelled through the roads of Pondicherry on this diwali day, i saw a young boy lighting a cracker just before my car and i was a bit annoyed by the high decibel 'sara vedi' aka 100 vala. It also reminded me of the mischief i played during my childhood days in the government quarters where we resided as a joint family. Being a naughty boy in my family, every uncle (i had four uncles) used to buy their share of cracker for me to celebrate the festival of noises and crackers. The famous Ariyankuppam crackers are known for its high decibel acoustic. It shatters the windows of some houses nearby in vibration. Such was the intensity of the cracker and i used to give a thunderous start always.

Some of the mischiefs are too much to tolerate for the old residing in the nearby vicinity. They fear particularly me because i used to fire the crackers in a mischievous way that creates nuisance in the locality. The unusual ways i used to fire the crackers include inserting the cracker in fresh dung, in the public garbage bin, empty coconut shells or glass bottles that sprays flints when burst, and sometimes throw the lit cracker in the air. Now, these mischiefs seems to be a dangerous one and i feel very bad about what nuisance i had created to the benevolent old people of those days. How fast those days have gone? Now, i am playing a role of ensuring strict compliance of the fire safety from the general public who are lighting crackers and selling fire crackers.

My Apologies to those who lost their peace during my diwali celebrations!

Saturday, October 03, 2009