Over the weekend, Diwali was upon us and gone..
When it comes to Diwali, we all remember the usual festival accompaniments like
sweets, the upset stomach that follows the sweets, new clothes, showing
off the new clothes etcetera..
But what I was particularly nostalgic about were the crackers - specifically, the Snake Tablets.
Now, I am not what one could call a cracker buff; in fact, during Diwalis, I was the annoying co-celebrator who kept fussing about the danger of crackers, mouthing public service ads like the ones seen on Doordarshan - "be careful! Don't hold the sparkler so close to your body"!
Suffice to say, my parents did not have to worry about me turning into a pyromaniac..
But the only kind of crackers (if you could call them that!) that I was fascinated by were Snake Tablets.. the reasons are easy enough to guess - 1) they don't make noise 2) there is no danger of getting burnt by them.. but the most important reason why they are so close to my heart is because they fulfilled every child's penchant for destruction & mess..
Snake tablets come in deceptively innocent looking matchboxes and look like black Hajmolas.. but don't be fooled by their simple facade.. set them on fire and they transform into the most amazing snake sculptures you could ever see.. catch a bunch of children with their mouth hanging open with awe on Diwali and you can bet that there is a powdery mass of serpentine statues nearby.. and last but not the least.. once the snakes erupt out of the tablet and the kids have had their fill of the black edifice, then comes the second part of festival fun.. stomping on the snake sculptures... children are not known for their sentimentality and there is nothing quite as satisfying as crushing delicate structures and creating a mess!
It is probably the only occasion where the mess creation would not get you into trouble; after all, compared to getting your fingers burnt, setting your neighbour's scooter or your mom's expensive saree on fire, what's a little black mess on the floor, right?
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kooky!!! i am so with u on the mess and destructiont with fake hajmola bit... :) who cares if ur lungs get choked with this black mess its sooooooo much fun.... all our homes have the black burnt momentos to remind us that deep down we are all still kids....
ReplyDeleteFYI all the people reading Kooky's blogs another example of Anu's penchant for mess and destruction happens to be dipping her entire arm into dosa batter and swirling it till you have to shooo her out of the room... ya she was one hell of a kooky thing
hehe, I did not put my arm in the dosa batter! I merely used the ladle to improve my social skills, you know, by mixing well!!
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