I can still recall that every Friday there is the "Haat" (special market) at our small suberb and because of Dipawali, the haat used to be full of local made crackers on those days. There were fantasies among the young people like me to purchase the best quality crackers available in the small town and most of them being high-decible fireworks, now completely banned.The evening was excellent as only lights available being candle lights and there used to be a long (around 2 to 3 hrs.) load-shading on those days (even in the eve of Dipawali / Kalipujo - the worship of goddess Kali). The candle lit houses of the neighbourhood, which are actually very same old simple houses we used to view everyday, got turned into very mystic, romantic, thrilling unknown places in their half lit, half darkened appearance.
We used to keep running around our houses to keep an eye on the sky for rockets, which produced either sound only or sometimes a parachute/garlands of red-green-white combinations. There were huge sound producing "chacolate bomb", "gach bomb" (this one used to be hanged from a tree - gach in Bengali) and "dodomas" (two sounds, one cracking sound and the other after the cracker gets lifted to a height of ten twelve feet by an internal rocket). The sound crackers I really loved to enjoy was "jal bomb" (jal - water). This one, after being lit on hand, were to be thrown in a pond and they kept rolling for a certain time as long as the fuge is burning. And then, there were huge sounds from the cracker followed by the sound of the falling water, lifted up by the explosion.
Now that we are using electric lights of hundred types on the eve of Dipawali and Kalipujo, we are really missing the old days of candle lit mysticism we used to enjoy. And of course the new generation fire crackers are much more astonishingly beautiful in their fireworks, still I miss something inevitably in them, may be because I am getting old. I have so many beautiful memories of this very day that this is the best festival for me from my childhood till date.
Wish you all a great Dipawali and Kalipujo followed by Bhai Phota (a special day for sisters putting mark on their brother's forehead praying for the brother's long life).
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