Diwali

Diwali is one of the most popular celebrations here in Chennai. Celebrated over five days, the ‘festival of lights’ is an important festival all over the country, but you would have to forgive the outsider who would think that it was more a ‘festival of noise’ than anything else. You see, for 2 or 3 days, around the clock, people of all ages take part in the progressively irritating ‘ritual’ of exploding firecrackers in the street. Now I can see the connection with the lighting of colorful fireworks and the spirit of Diwali—there is no stretch there—but when you have people lighting off a 100+ foot long string of inner ear thundering firecrackers (see photo), over and OVER and OVER again, there is every reason to wonder if this point here is to scare the bejeezus out of everyone—from stray dog to blue faced god. The problem of noise is something that many in the city are concerned about, as you can see in the dozens of Letters to the Editor in the local newspapers, leading up to Diwali. Just this last year, an upper cap was put on the firecracker decibels, but I can’t imagine that it did much good.

At first, Kaia was intrigued by the lights and noise that were coming from the street below our flat. A few days before Diwali, when the noise had already begun and we had no idea what we were in store for, he would run to the window to watch. However, by the time that the meat of the celebration had begun, it was like a war zone outside of our place. I have heard this analogy used before to describe loud situations, but in this case, it really sounded like machine gun fire and bombs (literally) going off just outside our window. Poor little guy was terrified, and while he did eventually get used to it, there was one time where he was in a room by himself and I found him curled up in the fetal position crying from the noise.

What compounded the challenge of being here during this time was that Kaia was very sick. He was running a 103 degree fever and he gave it to me as well. So here we are, lying in bed, trying to recover and rest, and there is a gunfight raging outside of our window. Not the best way to get healthy fast.

So, I think that the lesson learned here for the noise-averse foreigner is to get out of the country during Diwali. If, for some reason, we are still in India next November, I’ll be sure that we’re not in India, if you know what I mean.

Why I Love this Time: The little arc he takes when running out of a room and turning to go at a 90 degree angle.