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Every smog has its day
That crackers did not only have to do with Diwali, revelry was also showcased at the Wankhede stadium
Every smog has its day. It’s indeed a season of scary smog meets crackers gone bonkers.
Crackers came back with a bang that was bigger, bolder and brazen.
It was as if crackers cocked a snook at the bans of previous seasons and absences of pandemic season to return with a vengeance.
That crackers did not only have to do with Diwali revelry was also showcased at Wankhede stadium.
What a cracker of a season for ourMen in Blue at the cricket World Cup. What a cracker of a show by Virat, Shami and Co!
There were crackers galore, then there was smog like never before.
Smog is Diwali season’s bane beyond the windowpane.
Ah, but if one were to say that smogin some ways came as a blessing in disguise, it may cause some Tweeple to arch eyebrows to horrified heights, so as to resemble a northern expedition up the Himalayas.
Credit it on smog that many of us didn’t perambulate out to go “bartan bazaar” hopping or brass diya shopping on Dhanteras and Diwali. Instead of a visiting spree outdoors, smog prodded some to plumb the indoors.
To go revisiting those long-forgotten treasures in attics or cluttered carton boxes, to dig out dust-darkened or disdain-darkened Diwali discards — brass “deepams” and “vilakkus” handed down by naanis and daadis.
Thank the smog for a Deepawali that was less plastic for some this time.
Since smog prevented us from pottering out to pile shopping carts with the poor yet pricier substitute of “peetal” — that fickle- sheen yellow metal Diwali decor, from faux gold tea lights to frilly lamps and lanterns.
Credit it on smog that it ensured Dhanteras was spent indoors doing a workout of juggling lemons not only for belly-trimming green teas, but also for scraping those layers and layers of dirt, disuse or disdain piled up on humble brass deepams to aarti thalis.
It spelt not only a revisiting of discarded heirlooms, but also a symbolic returnto roots.
It was not only the brass “deepams” that got a new lease of life, but also solid heritage, edged out into oblivion by the plasticity of celebrations riding cheap metal substitutes.
Substitutes that boast sheen but not substance or solidity.
Not to forget, the smoggy Dhanteras came riding saviours. The many a new digital “bartan bhandar” — Blinkit to Big Bazaar.
Now, coming to the bane and the windowpane of it.
That curtains of smog were clogging our vision long before the Festival of Lights may signal bigger paradigm shifts, deeper ills amid the thrills. It may mean that living with lack of clear vision is becoming our way of life, our New Normal.
The smog of opulence and ostentation, the smog of outdoings and overdoings is increasingly the lens filtering our festival season.
The smog of fancy frills and flamboyant flaunting has shrouded so much the simplicity of festivals that it would seem we learnt no life lessons from the recently receded pandemic.
Downsizing is what the pandemic had so poignantly driven home.
Fickleness of material life is what the Pandemic had so clearly taught us.
Alas, such is the fickleness of human memory that we have lost no time in bouncing back with a vengeance to jollifications that are shriller, shallower and synthetic.
Biggest Takeaway from Diwali 2023— the really scary smog isn’t outside,it’s inside. It’s shrouding the windowpanes of our vision, making us lose sight ofthe essence, the real raison d’etre offestivals.
The curious case of “It’s a smog’s life”
