Deepavali 2004
Yet another Deepavali has come and gone. I remember my childhood days when I’d have a lot of fun bursting crackers during the weeks preceding Deepavali itself. My uncle and I had great discussions regarding the Deepavali budget for crackers. He’d say Rs. 500 and I’d invariably order crackers for Rs. 1000. He indulged me back then. After the 7th standard when my parents, my sister and I moved to our present house, the want for crackers diminished, but not greatly. We’d go back there and burst more crackers for that old house had a huge garden which was suited for the “battle games” we’d play. We had a dog who was extremely fond of the crackers, especially those loud “Atom bombs”. He’d stay back until the bomb exploded and then start chasing the smoke trails. Sadly, his health was dwindling and his interest in the crackers as well. After he died, bursting crackers hasn’t been the same.
Slowly, my interest in crackers dwindled and my interest in computers increased day by day. My father’s office had given him a laptop for his use. The configuration was top of the line back then - 486DX2 50MHz, 8MB RAM, 250 MB hard disk, Windows 3.11. I succeeded in putting some DOS games, and invariably a few viruses into the laptop, which of course, had to be formatted to remove all traces of the viruses. My interest in crackers was still present, thought not much. But even that was lost once I bought my first desktop - a Pentium II with a 2.1GB hard disk, 32MB RAM and Windows 95. I’d be so engrossed in the games on the computer that I’d no longer burst crackers.
Although we no longer bought crackers, we still got some complimentary boxes from various places. When I totally lost interest in crackers, these were sitting idle, so the only thing left to do was to increase our distribution to the various people. Today, I dread the noisy sounds of Deepavali, a far cry from wanting to burst a 1000 wala back in 1996. The only wish I have is for a light filled Deepavali, not a sound filled one.