It’s “Deepabali”—the Night of Light-Fire and Smoke!
All the roofs of the house-hold locality are electrifyingly decorated with Chinese lanterns…a few roofs and verandahs are definitely orthodox enough to distinguish themselves following the oldie traditional line of Deewali Celebration with some oil filled mud lamps (easily identified by “Pradip” or “Diya”); and some are most happy to just using candles of various size, colour and smell.
Fire-crackers have gladly started ransacking the little peace that was till unshattered, and with them perticipated jubilant cries of a mammoth spectators consisting of representatives from various age groups…from six to sixty, I presume!
The dark night sky could hardly bare a single patch of black on her night-robe…many known and unknown sorts of fire-crackers are showering into her some dazzling rays of light every now and then.
She could hardly get a place to be used as an exceptionally good hide-out.
The air is also not less unfortunate—it is almost chocked, and about to loose conscience; as the smoke covered air only offers an asthma even to them too who never considered themselves a victim of that fetal illness.
It’s the Deepabali Night…the festival of light.
When the sky is simply dazzling with multicoloured light I lowered my head from my one room flat…I intended to see the ground…the mud…the grass…the rocks… the thrown away garbage…and all these little trivialities.
The sky was hired by some most prosperous citizens of this society…but still, the earth surface has been occupied by a very minor group of people.
One small girl and a boy…much smaller in size were standing there. They were certainly not properly dressed, specially if you keep the sprit of the “Festive of Light” in mind!
Torn away frock…unwashed dirty shirt with stinking smell…uncombed hair…without shoes…
They do not have any special feature, by the grace of which they could be taken to the top of these multi-storied-buildings where they could join the rest of their fellow age group and have some fun-hours together.
The girl and the boy also knew that much more than we do…so they stopped at the gate, stood firmly on the earth surface….and kept their eager eyes all fixed at the night sky high above their heads….
They are in the expectation that none would kick them out before the fire-cracker-show is burnt out!
And far far miles away I can clearly visualize another little girl….she is now gorgeously dressed up and standing aloof at the corner of the roof of their three-storied-building….
It’s a vast wide open roof…
There are plenty of fire-works scattered all around…
Her grandmother and mother are preparing the candles on the arches of the roof-wall….they had already called the five-years old girl to join them and be some help.
But the girl is lost somewhere in some deep thought.
She is looking at the sky…at the distant stars that twinkle straight to her eyes…
She is looking for her father…
She knew, that her father has gone to somewhere among those stars high above the sky.
Everybody told her that he will never ever return again…
She will never be able to throw herself onto her father’s arms as soon as he would return from office….
He will never tell her beautiful stories at bed time….
He will never try to put her into sleep with the help of some lullaby…
All of them say that her father is gone…gone for ever…
But still, the little mermaid constantly keeps her eyes fixed at the stars and tries desperately to figure out which, among all these millions and billions of stars, could be her father!
She ransacks the entire sky…only with a little hope of finding her father someday….
But Alas! The smoke density in the air very soon catches her eyes with a delicate burning sensation…and tears roll out of her lovely red eyes…
The unfortunate father remains undiscovered.
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