Midweek Musings 47 4.11.26
Making a case
for Dias this festival of lights
By Malini Shankar
Diwali is
around the corner, and appeals by environmentalists are making the atmosphere
in India more toxic than the gaseous emissions am afraid.
Diwali is the festival of lights and marks the
new year for trading communities and most of the Indian Subcontinent and
offshore Indians in the Diaspora too celebrate the festival of lights. After
all it marks the coronation of Lord Rama after his victory of Ravanna the Asura
who had abducted his wife Sitadevi during his 14 years of royal banishment or
Vanvas as it is known in Indian mythology.
But today Diwali is hardly celebrated as a
festival of lights to mark the victory of good over evil. Today it is chain
bombs made of poisonous chemicals, noisy crackers with polluting lights, hardly
symbolic of a “festival of lights”. Its
not just noxious air… think of the lights that disturb the hatchlings in bird
nests. Post monsoon all birds have either laid eggs or the hatchlings have
emerged out of the nests…. These creatures also share the Planet Earth, it is
not just humanity’s inherited property. Even pet dogs and cats are perturbed by
the bombs euphemistically called crackers.
Not too long ago … those of us who grew up in
the 70s… recall that Diwali meant sweets, new clothes, and sparklers. Dias
would be set up artistically, there was competition amongst ladies to set up
Dias creatively. Elders or heads of families’ distributed sweets among family
and friends and all children of the neighbourhood would enjoy igniting a
sparkler or flower pot, 2 or 3 noisy bombs per family and a colourful math box
whose match sticks emitted different colours on being lit up. Memsahibs of the
wealthy families would donate new sarees to their staff alongwith cartons of
Desi ghee laden Motichur laddoos, Bengali sweets would invade our kitchens and
we generally had to forget dieting for a fortnight – starting with Danteras to
Karthik Dwadashi – the evenings where south Indian families worship Tulasi in
the Aangan / compound / garden.
To others spiritually inclined… Deepavali is an
occasion to distribute and feed the needy – abandoned widows in Brindavan, or
sponsor an orphaned child’s school / university education. Others shelter
abandoned street dogs, feed cows etc… After all such meaning truly lights up
one’s heart.
But today black money is quite literally burnt
up as toxic crackers which are so noisy and so bright that it leaves a foul smell
for weeks on end. Not to forget the hardships faced by pourakarmikas who have to
clean the litter on the roads the next day. Boys used to be preferred to light
up the bombs, that would shatter the peace in the neighbourhood. Elders who
were sleeping n resting used to be startled and would wake up with a jolt and
they would holler at their grandsons for shaking their siesta.
What we Green Brigade are really concerned about
is the pollution in the air and the noxious lights disturb other creatures
great and small. Ground nesting / burrowing creatures like insects, rabbits,
snakes frogs, ground nesting birds suffer injuries and these traditional types
who insist on their right to celebrate by polluting the air do not ten to
injured creatures and wildlife. One such character asked me why I am not able to
stop the war in Ukraine or Iran so on what grounds can I object to crackers
being burst. He meant to say till such time that all the ills of the world are
corrected he and his ilk want to continue to burst crackers pollute planet
Earth, injure mute wildlife.
Lighting wicks soaked in neem oil in Dias will
make an effective insecticide too in this harvest season.
Even today
the Green brigade will not object to lighting Dias to celebrate the Festival of
lights. What the greens object to is the noxious toxic chemicals that are
released by loud crackers which not only pollute the environment … rendering
toxic the oxygen we humans breathe,
Or better
still Indian sweets
for the palate! Or creative LED coloured and chain lights ….
Or remember
those crackers that light p the sky for events like New Year on the Harbour
Bridge in Sydney, for inaugurations of Olympics etc?
There are a
million way of getting creative to celebrate if the mind is open to letting in
light. So much for the festival of Lights!
We human
Beings call ourselves civilized but occasions like Deepavali should make us more
sensitive to other creatures great and small, not just to wallow in eco
unfriendly shenanigans that boost our ego…
Feast your tongue...
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Greetings of the festive season!
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