Come Diwali, the festival of lights, it is all about the joy of sharing and having fun bursting crackers. It being my favourite festival, I never missed the celebrations even a single year, even while I was away from home for Diwali for the first time last year. And it promised to be as exciting as ever this time as it fell on the 5th of November.
It was 6:17am and I got a call from Yudha. I suddenly gave a jerk and woke up, "Merlin's beard! What am I doing?!" I was supposed to be there at the central lawns (C-Lawns) at 6am with a part of the crackers that was there with me. So, I hurriedly got up, answered the call, "Ya, ya... I am there in 5 minutes", and then got into my pants rushing into the bogs (common bathroom). Then, I got a call from home as expected. "Take head bath, dear", advised my mom as expected. "Haan, haan", I replied while I was thinking, "Damn it! I don't even have the time to brush my teeth right now. I shall have to rush."
"Jenishta bul hocchey", I muttered to myself and so did Pras as we were playing a sick game called 1up-1down on the eve of Diwali. Apparently it means, "The thing is going wrong" in Bengali and I began using it frequently since I learnt it (not that things have been going fine before I did so). The rule of the game is this: you play it till you find out how it is played. WTH?! Sounds exciting isn't it? But, it didn't for me. And that's why I suck at it.
We decided to meet at C-Lawns at 6am the next day to burst crackers and parted. Judee decided to come to my room and watch 'Enthiran - The Robot' that night. It was about 2:30am when we were done with it. Excited about the coming morning, I set my cellphone's alarm clock to 5:30am and slept off. The alarm rang at 5:30am and I slowly opened my eyes too. I was staring at it constantly, may be for a minute or so. There was a rush of adrenaline inside me. The alarm was ringing... Because, this is going to be one hell of a day. The alarm was still ringing... We had lots of crackers to burst. The alarm was still going on... We will spend sometime in connaught place for dinner. It was still going on... Then we will be bursting bombs that go off in the sky and give brilliant colours. This time I stopped the alarm. The next thing I remember was the call from Yudh at 6:17am.
It was about 6:20am by the time I got into the bogs talking with people from home. My little brother was excited as to what crackers I have. "Is it a flower pot that you lit just now?", he asked. "No, I am peeing", I replied. After talking to the whole lot of people at home, I just took the bag of agarbathis and 600 wala that I had and rushed towards C-Lawns. "This is it!", I thought. "Diwali's here!"
A whole lot of people would be there, that includes people from raag (my club) and all the illads (tamil speaking people are called illads in BITSian lingo). I ran to the middle of the lawns and then noticed that it was deserted. What the hell was going on? Then I called Yudha. He told me that he is on his way. "Damn it! I came here running at 6:25am in the morning. I didn't even shit", I muttered to myself.
I went back to the wing, brushed my teeth, took bath (sprinkling some water on my head too to get the satisfaction of taking a head bath). After completing all morning rituals, I went to C-Lawns. Almost everyone was there. We started off with a mini atom bomb and went on to burst many of them and many others too. Initially, seeing the pathetic way in which the crackers were bursting, Shravan exclaimed, "I can spit louder than them." Even I thought, "Ya, I can fart louder than them!"
Dinner in connaught place in the evening was followed by a concluding round of bursting of crackers, particularly the 600 wala one and the fireworks that burst in sky. Judee was putting enthu with vengaya vedi (literally translates to 'onion crackers' from Tamil). Thanks to Shravan, Nammu, Preethi, Yudh, Neeraja, Judee, Ashwin and Juju, my Diwali was a wonderful one this year.
