Timelapse of one firecracker going off
My earliest memories of Diwali are always tied to how as a child I could never sleep on the night before the festival. In the days before the internet, igadgets, nintendo etc- we kids only had festivals like Diwali to look forward to. It was always a competition about who would get up first and burst the first firecracker. The big plus was also being able to wear new clothes (with the warning that we were to be very careful and not burn them). And that danger was always there- I have never had any major accidents thankfully but have at least twice stepped barefoot on very hot sparklers- ouch!.All this even before 6 am in the morning- most of the kids would be out and about from 4 am (mostly begging to go out even earlier but not allowed to do so). After depleting all supplies of firecrackers, the commotion would go down a bit by about 8 am and then continue sporadically during the day until peaking again in the evening.
Chennai Skies Lit up for Diwali
I decided to stop bursting firecrackers a long time ago and Diwali no longer means the same thing to me (especially the waking up early part on what is a weekday office holiday). But apparently everybody else feels the same way too because this year even at 6 or 6.30 am (maybe it was just our neighbourhood) there was not a sound- it was just like any other day. Not to say that nobody was celebrating it but all the action seemed to happen only in the evening (I must specify that the emphasis on waking up early in the morning is a South Indian tradition- people in the North celebrate more in the evenings).
The non-stop fireworks
So I tried to ask myself if people (and kids) were just getting more averse to waking up early or if this was an effect of the trend to not burst firecrackers (but what happened in the evening completely contradicted this).
Each to his own
But I guess in one way the basic idea of the festival still remains the same- we all enjoy ourselves in whatever way we choose to!
My Encounter with Languages & Cultures 