The Sound and Fury of Diwali

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A few stores along, Om Prakash, 70, agrees that the fireworks make for a noisy Diwali. "When I was a child we had small crackers but these days they are bigger," he says, his hollowed out cheeks pulsing as he talks. To curb the noise, local authorities limit where fireworks can be sold and have introduced set hours during which they can be let off. Although a Delhi newspaper started a "Say No to Crackers" campaign, "people are not listening," says Prakash. "We are sleeping and there is still so much noise pollution. You can't escape it."

Indeed you can't. Last Saturday night the celebrations started around 6 p.m. as the light of the day faded and families gathered, first for a prayer and then to begin the fun. The odd explosion had been heard across the city in the days leading up to Diwali, but that was nothing compared to the noise that was unleashed as darkness set in. It seemed as if every person in Delhi simultaneously lit a fuse, stood back and waited for the explosion. Color and light shot up from parks and neighborhood streets, from backyards and rooftop terraces. Those who weren't outside letting off fireworks were perhaps inside pursuing the second favorite form of Diwali fun: gambling.

"Everything your parents wouldn't let you do as a kid," a journalist colleague who had bought a couple of bags of crackers enthused. I joined him and another friend to add to the organized chaos on the street outside his apartment in a well-to-do Delhi suburb. Neighbors on both sides were already well into detonation mode. A couple of kids stood in the next driveway lighting a series of little "bombs" and throwing them out into the road where they would sit for a second and then burst open with a cracking bang. No light, no pretty stream of sparks, just an explosion. The noises from across the city reminded me of my time in Baghdad. There were big resonating whumps that sounded like mortar fire, and the regular chatter of strings of tiny crackers that sounded like a bucking machine gun. A familiar fear flooded back: that strange sense of dislocation you have in war, unsure of where the next explosion will come from but aware that it is never far away. I thought about my colleagues in Baghdad who still experience the real thing day after day.

The family next door had joined the two boys in the driveway now, and were lighting sparklers and smaller fireworks and laughing whenever a fiery rocket got stuck in a tree or went off course, which was most of the time. I wished them happy Diwali and they returned the salutation, perhaps amused to be sharing the ritual fireworks display with foreigners. After a while they headed inside and I headed home. The explosions continued for the next 24 hours, rumbling on across the city like aftershocks from some enormous earthquake.