Like there’s no tomorrow                                                            
Doomsday sayers prophesied a global meltdown. Indian bazaars during diwali belied that claim

Talk of global meltdown was accompanied by a gloomy depiction of Indian economy. Diwali was approaching when markets across the world had plummeted and corporate giants like Lehmann evaporated into air. The jist of the talk here in India was: ‘markets thande pade hain’, ‘ek graahak naheen aa raha dukan mein’, ‘corporates are cutting down their Diwali gift spending phenomenally’... They had underestimated Indians’ optimism, as also their appetite for spending.

A visit to a market during Diwali was enough to dispel fears of recession. Markets were so choc-o-block with cars, the roads had such bad traffic even during lean hours, the shops were so full, one wondered whether media persons were getting reports of slump from another planet. Be it high-end products like jewellery or regular diwali products like decoratives, people didn’t refrain from buying these simply because there’s news of global recession doing rounds. Honestly saying, no one shelved one’s buying plans on that account. There was no pall of gloom over the market place. In fact the atmosphere was as festive as on any other Diwali.

Yes, the same sights which greet one each Diwali brought in a tinge of sadness and a modicum of somberness - the hapless diyawali sitting on a street chocked with cars, guarding her diyas at the same time as her younger one; the thelawala selling Ganesh-Lakshmi being frisked away by the policeman… but for them, when was Diwali ever a bonanza time?

I am not a patakha lover. I never progressed beyond phuljhari-chakri-annar. Bombs send a shudder through me. I will never understand how a person can derive pleasure from that deafening sound. So I should have been happy when a few years ago Delhi schools went for a ‘no-cracker’ drive. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t. As school after school asked its students to fill a bond and the children gladly told friends and family that they were now part of ‘no-cracker’ brigade, I wasn’t exactly jubilated. Of course the child labour involved in making these crackers was dastardly but I wish to know what has happened to the kids who have been rendered ‘jobless’. Are they attending schools now?

My problem with the drive is on another count. You start bursting a cracker because of the pollution it creates. Well, I am grateful. Life on Diwali is more tolerable after that, though still not a paradise in terms of noise levels. It’s still not a paradise in terms of smoke levels. Which brings me to the crux of the issue. Kids, in all their honesty, start believing that their no-cracker vow will make their city a better place to live. I have my doubts here. Have the schools also cared to show a mirror to the kids in terms of their own polluting habits? ‘Babalog’ coming to school in air-conditioned cars, driver delivering lunchbox at lunchtime, mother dropping and picking up the darling child from piano class, guitar lesson, friend’s birthday might not be as obviously polluting, but there are environment and energy costs involved nevertheless. What about the heaps of chips wrappers, empty cold drink cans, used up pens discarded after a single use? To some they might not be as jarring a sight as empty shells of crackers and street urchins trying to take out gun powder from them for reusing. But they pose an environmental problem nevertheless - what does one do with the hillocks of discarded garbage generated by us?

But just as the victor writes history, here the rich have acquired the right to claim, “My pollution is more environment-friendly than yours.”.