With Diwali (or Deepavali… Folks, It’s not the name… Its the spirit that matters… ‘A rose by any other name shall smell as sweet!!!’) behind us, Chennai seems to be reeling back to the bore or routine life after 3 days of celebration. Come Monday, everyone will be be back on their regular routines of office, colleges, work, household chores.

This Diwali too like all the ones before was filled with crackers and sweets. However, I did notice the change in the kind of crackers that people use at homes. During my childhood, we had what I remember calling vishnu chakra, flowerpot, mathaappu, vedigundu, snake(remember that?), the toy gun(this used to be around for  months even after diwali), the infamous 1000 gundu and sometimes a few rockets.

This diwali, I saw the skies light up with so many elaborate fireworks, rockets, parachutes, designer crackers than before. Such elaborate fireworks used to be the forte of organizations with huge budgets and specially skilled people (fireworks experts) to light those fireworks and execute those caution and safety. As kids, we used to gather around on housetops and open grounds to watch these fireworks up in the sky. Today, such fireworks have become available and affordable for everyone. Kids and teenagers fire them with as much ease and caution as those ‘fireworks experts’ of my childhood.

Now, amidst all these celebrations, I also did see a lot of really careless characters having their cracker fun on the roads. I saw crackers bursting almost everywhere. Even grown ups (i would say common sense-impaired grown ups) alone or accompanying kids to fire crackers up in places like.. the mount road during traffic time, inside covered car parks, closed corridors in flats, apartment balcony, on the tops of autorickshaws, in front of Apollo Clinics (that too ones specializing in Heart/Chest).

Some geniuses due to the lack of space inside their homes were out on the streets setting out 10 feet long chains of crackers on the road blocking the traffic for a few minutes. Something worth mentioning is everyone’s patience towards such stupid acts of public nuisance. Two wheeler drivers were proving to be dare devils by riding at break-neck speeds through streets with crackers bursting on all sides. They were dodging the crackers and moving on while the not-so-blessed four-wheeler drivers/three-wheeler-drivers stopped waited around for the crackers to finish bursting.

But then, hey… It’s festive season. Who cares about safety, public convenience, other’s health… Atleast till the next day when stories of cracker mishaps and diwali accidents start turning up in the newspapers.

Incidently, talking about accidents, I didn’t notice many such reports in the news or the papers. So, I guess this Diwali has been more safe and healthy than the ones before. Good for all of us! :) Now, lets put Diwali behind us and prepare ourselves for the next festival. Is it Karthika or is there anything in between?