It is six past six in the evening, and “Burdhwan Junction” has swept passed by my right. I could see scintillating colorful lights, chandeliers, candles and numerous varieties of artistic creations (that can only be the output of typical Bengali creativity for which I genuinely appreciate them) on the rooftops by the railway trackside. Oh yes! It is “Diwali : The festival of light”. The train is moving fast and the streak of light build because of speed of train is making numerous patterns, amazing and beautiful, just like any famous painting by Late M.F Hussain. Watching them, thoughts drilled down the past memories as if I have been hypnotized by some magician to spit-out my past Diwali night memories, as if some DBA has fired flashback query to access the deleted data from the database recycle been.
Yes, it used to be one of the nights for which I used to wait for a whole year. I could visualize myself and my sis, jumping on the sparks around the “chakri” with a black centre emitting out light to its surrounding, as if a star is about to end emitting out all its light and turning into black-hole. I could see my Dad lighting the rocket which for sure doesn’t reach moon, but definitely launches our joy to the extreme point till it burst out in pieces. I could see my mom, smiling, watching the “Anar”, and emitting its sparks like a fountain of joy to its maximum. One thing was common among all these crackers, all emitted light for a moment and then turns to ash as if teaching us lesson - Burn to ash, if you want to give light and happiness to other.
Hey!! It’s Panagarh, which means I could see my college in a moment or two. Wait a minute, which side of Howrah-Delhi main line was it? Right- yes, but what is this, so dark. Not a single light!!!! Strange! Is it? When we were in college, we deliberately used to stay in college during diwali. Not because we don’t want to go home, but because to electrify the night. To help in decoration of the place this meant a lot to us – after all college is college. Good or bad, nasty or cheerful, all flavors and experiences of life, almost all of them – we got here. But now, there is a silence, may be they doesn’t care for it any more, may be two years have changed to environment or rather now-a-days two year is sufficient time to bring gap in the generation an its thought. May be now, it is only a place to receive a degree and nothing more.
Here crosses the Durgapur Station. Numerous moments of mischief can be counted on it. I even don’t want to mention them here else Google will prompt a validation for publish of this post stating its size limitation more than the capacity. Be it Satish’s birthday celebration, or late night college return (when the train was the only means of communication left to reach Rajbandh Terminal), or a non-sense, no-occasion party all have got some moments here. Alas, time is the only thing, according to Stephen Hawkins, that cannot flow in (-)ve axis. Sigh!!!
As now there is nothing to watch out for a while, the psychiatric light pattern has restarted drilling down a bit further into my memories. I could remember that, for days I used to dry up the crackers in sun-light on terrace as to confirm, they don’t have any more moisture. Buying them was itself an adventure. It was like you had to select a few items from Pandora box, where all of them are equally attractive, seductive and a wan ‘a bee. Oh my god!! Really, it was the perfect project planning, with limited resource and fund you have to get maximum output. May be I should include them in my CV. Dad used to leave that all on us, as if want to test our judgment of selecting the appropriate ones guiding like an experienced consultant. Damm!! If there would have been any designated post for that expertise he would have received “A” band in his entire appraisal. He is Damm good in it. I could remember an incident. I don’t remember the year exactly but most probably it was 1994 or 95. I was craving for some new firework and babbling about not getting it. Really that was Rs.200 per piece, quite costly at that time. I was making my facial expression and then my sis came out of “Swadeshi Bhandar”, that was the store name, carrying out some decoration stuffs. She then told me, there was a boy hardly of age 4-5, he wasn’t having any money. May be his parents were not in a condition to buy him crackers. He wanted a pack of “Fuljhari”. My sis, asked my dad to pay him for that. He was exited like hell. He stopped crying. I shouted at her for a while for wasting money for a stranger. After a while I realized, we were not too rich, but at least getting what we want. How is it going to harm me if someone gets a piece of happiness in is shattered drowsy life. After all, festivals are to spread love and happiness. I felt very guilty and that year onwards, I never made any scene for crackers. And now two years in job, I never burst any cracker on Diwali. But yes, every year I would buy a pack of “Fuljhari” to some unknown poor miserable stranger child, just to overcome the guilt.
“Beep-Beep” – “Airtel welcomes you to Jharkhand”. Wicked! I have reached Dhanbad. I didn’t even realized when Asansol passed by. I need to send one message. No reply! Another minute passed, and then another and another, no reply yet. May be the person is too busy in celebrating the festival. But how dare not to answer? How could one? Then I remembered, Diwali is all about celebration, which is beyond friendship, relationship and personal prejudices. It is all about spreading light - Remembering of which, “Diya” cropped into my mind. Diya made up of clay, small, need frequent fuel refilling, but yet like mascot of Diwali. I used to put them in water so that they absorb enough water in advance to avoid fuel absorption. My grandma used to prepare “Bati” from old worn out cloths. My Grandpa, dad and sis along with me use to place them at equal distance and wait for night to come, so that we can light them and eliminate the dark evil. Electric lights were there, but there was something with these tiny arts that always fascinated me. Even today I prefer Diya over electric series lights. Maybe I have been institutionalized to have them. It’s a pity, now you barely see any of them - at least not in abundance. In fact they now use electric wire and LED’s to light diya.
It’s getting too wired and I decided not to drill my memories any more. This small rendezvous of mine with myself has given me enough material to think. Isn’t awesome- the Hindu Mythology and tradition, our culture, where everything has got a scientific or psychological significance. Finding alternatives is a human nature and that is good. Otherwise we might have still been living in caves rubbing stones to produce light. But sometime I feel like running away from and taking alternatives has made the original path as alternative. Everything has pros and cons. But, as I always say, it’s we, human –always seek the easy path. Diwali now has become just like any other day for many of us. No excitement, no adventure and no pleasure. May be a holiday to relax and take rest. Human values have changed and so do they. But the question lies within – who is responsible – Scientific advancements, cultural shift, Social values or we ourselves? May be someday I could figure that out, but that’s in the top of the Maslow’s Hierarchical Triangle, i.e, in self actualization need. It is just a matter to think about……….
