Firecrackers are a good signal!

This post celebrates my understanding of Indian resilience in the face of all odds, and with all its paradoxes. Read it carefully, and completely to see what I mean.
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Yes, yes, I know! They are said to be environmentally bad, some of the manufacturers employ child-labour, and they are oh-so-out-of-fashion now for some of our urban youth.

But firecrackers, especially those that reach for the sky are a very strong indicator of the economic mood of the people. After all, firecrackers that reach the sky are the costlier versions - and the people who buy them (and fire them) are likely to be those who have substantial disposable income in that period, and the willingness to spend it. I agree that a little element of "showing off" cannot be ruled out, but largely, people will not fire crackers (in the sky especially) just to show off! Someone who is dejected, or has lost out in business, or has no hope for the future, is likely not to celebrate by shooting costly fireworks up in the sky. Right?

To be honest, I have grown up celebrating Diwali with firecrackers, and like mad! Only recently have the spirits been tamed slightly :-)

Diwali night (17th October) was a big surprise for me. A big pleasant, positive surprise. Like every year, we spend the last part of the evening on top of our building (that's 5th and 6th floors). It offers a panoramic 360 degrees view of my city (Indore). Usually it feels as if the entire city has put up a beautiful fireworks show just for us! You can see firecrackers everywhere continuously, brightly lighting up the sky randomly, with all possible colours. It is quite an overwhelming feeling.

This year, going by the media reports, the widespread Dengue menace locally, and the general mood around, I thought the mood would be sombre, and downcast. So I was all the more eager to study it carefully.

How wrong I was! The animal spirits of the people of Indore (animal spirits = raw spirit of enterprise and achievement) was visible in ample measure. The firecrackers show was almost as good as last year, when it was anyway very strong! Watch a raw video here

Children in my family went crazy seeing all this :-)

My learnings from all this

1. Festivals are meant to be celebrated with ample gaiety, and the Indian people surely know this well! They are an extremely resilient lot. They do not like to allow anything to come between them and their festive celebrations.
2. We Indians know how to optimise:-) The main Diwali night is too precious to be lost out to stupid niceties of global trade realities. We may cut down on other days of the festive season, but main Diwali night? Baahh... forget it!
3. There is nothing like commuity happiness and cumulative display of confidence when it comes to beating the blues. The inner emotional feeling I had while watching the splendid show put up by the citizens last night was unparalleled. I almost forgot things are not all well with global economy, all I felt was a sense of raw joy, pure elation and unbridled sense of optimism for the future!
4. It will be a wonderful idea for the Indian governments never to forget that not integrating India totally with the global economy is actually a good idea - we are so big, so people-rich, so ideas-rich, that if clean leadership can be provided to us internally, we may have little to look outside our borders to fulfil our basic needs. The world will come to us - they need us badly.
5. Firecrackers on main Diwali night are not a bad idea, if they reinforce a strong sense of community well-being. I felt this strongly last night.

Civilisations that have lasted several millennia have something truly spectacular about them, and inside them. In my opinion, the Indian civilisation's resilience in the face of all possible odds across generations is what keeps us ticking. From time to time, the outward manifestation of this resilience changes shape, but the root is still the same.

Long live the Indian resilience and spirit!

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