Delhi's Diwali dread

Delhi shudders at the thought of Diwali every year. Another one on this Saturday is not likely to be any different. For a month there has been a beeline of people at the doorstep of Delhi's ministers or any politician with connections to get license to sell firecrackers. The decision makers did not disappoint them and a good number of them have got the license. Going by the huge number of retail firecracker sellers, it is to be easily estimated that Delhi will crack for nights before and after Diwali.

There is a palpable double standard on the part of the government, as its stated intent is to improve the environment of Delhi along with a popular discouragement for firecrackers. What the government preaches is seldom practiced, as there is a whole lot of people who need to be obliged, as they happen to have helped the people to come to the power.

A couple of years I just happened to run away Delhi's Diwali dread for a stay in Jaipur, the city of lights. In contrast to Delhi, there was hardly any noise. It was all lights, as if Jaipur was decorated as a bride. Delhi can take some lessons from Jaipur, but it is the people who give a character to a city, which leaves a question mark on the capital.

After staying in Delhi for a decade, I will choose to leave the city for few days during Diwali. I say so, as I along with many have suffered from the thick layers of gases emitted by the firecrackers occupying every space at the places where we reside. We inhale toxic gases, not oxygen on Diwali night and just add the shattering noise booming all night, as if having a good sleep that night is forbidden. If people in their youth are subjected to unbearable air  pollution, just imagine the fate of elders, children, newborns, pregnant ladies, the ill ones and so on. These people just do not have voice to be heard by the herd of merrymakers who think that they can just blast the whole world on the Diwali night.

Irony is that the government spends a good amount of public exchequer to sanitize people against the use of firecrackers through advertisements and campaign. But who ties the hands of the government to just ban the firecrackers in the capital.     

Just hope that Delhi, which is always short on manners, learn a little bit of human sensitivities. Paradoxically, the city of brute, that Delhi is known for, is going to host the Commonwealth Games next year.