The crackers continue. I feel we are under siege. Send quiet.
Leaving the house is risky, since the roads are packed with adolescent battalions armed with firecrackers and they set them off with little regard for passing cars, rickshaws, or pedestrians. I watched a bottle rocket misfire into a crowd and decided it was time to head home.
It�s a bit surreal to walk through dark streets surrounded by whirling swirls of colour. Dancing figures silhouetted against fountains of white fire. Lime green whistle-y crackers straight out of a Harry Potter novel. And when all the crackers are finished, there is one last bit of joy: the burning of all the leftovers. String and cardboard and bits of paper packaging�.not that there�s much left to burn. Because this is India and nothing ever goes to waste, raggedy barefoot children dart in and out of the crowds snatching cardboard boxes and packaging that they can sell for nearly nothing to the paper recycling companies.
That�s really the surreal part: Watching five-year-olds staggering down the road in the middle of the night, struggling to carry their piles of boxes while thousands of rupees go up in multicoloured flames all around us.
12:38 p.m. - 2003-10-31
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