Diwali: An Interactive Fireworks Experience

Last month, I got to experience Diwali during a family trip to Hyderabad, India.  During this festival of lights, lamps are lit and firecrackers ignited to celebrate the triumph of good over evil.  Every household stockpiles all kinds of fireworks for this celebration and no one seems to bother reading the safety precautions...

The complete disregard for public safety adds a level of adrenaline I don't normally associate with fireworks displays.  Sure, they are pretty enough when viewed from afar and strictly controlled by municipal authorities.  But what about when your crazy uncle gets his hands on a pile of high-powered mortar-style explosives and decides to set them off on the roof?  It is terrifying the first couple of times a poorly packed charge goes off early, but you eventually get used to burning embers bouncing off of your head.  In fact, standing inside the sphere of rapidly expanding colored shrapnel gives you an entirely different appreciation of fireworks.    No 4th of July or New Year's celebration in the U.S. will ever be the same.

A neighbor's fireworks explode nearby (taken in 2008)

In addition to the high powered mortars, there are all kinds of homemade rockets that are sketchy as hell.  Tharajuva, for example, are made by wrapping explosives in a wad of newspaper the size of a ping-pong ball and securing it to a meter long strip of cane.  You hold the little wad of explosives with your fingertips,  light the newspaper, and wait for the rocket to shoot out of your hand.  Being the American cousin, I had the honors of lighting the first one...

A tharajuva rocket shoots out of my brother's hand and explodes a dozen meters above our heads (taken in 2008)

For those with less steady nerves, there are mellower alternatives like candle-powered balloons.

An uncle waits for a balloon made from paper and string to inflate

 A pair of candle powered balloons float off into the night