If childhood is about finding joy in weird and the outright
disgusting things, then we nailed it as the 70- 80s kids in India!
Kali Pujo and Diwali had so many beautiful and delicious
traditions, food and memories for us. But the one that is engraved most deeply
in my mind is probably something that is banned now in India (not sure, though).
The kakus and dadas took care of the “rocket baajis” (we
kids weren’t allowed to light those up or even go too close to these
“hazardous” firecrackers. Their bodies would be in “high alert”, as they placed
these in glass bottles, then light a match, and with great precision (and what
seemed like a particular geometric angle), they would light the tails of these
rockets that would then soar up and turn the night sky into something magical.
As kids, this scene would be aspirational. No, I don’t mean that we would turn
philosophical at the sight of the night sky and aspire for new heights. And when
we said “ami boro hoye rocket jalabo”, it didn’t have anything to do with career
aspirations in astronomical or aeronautical sciences. We would simply mean that
one day, we would light those hazardous firecrackers ourselves, while everyone
else would watch us in awe.
The didis often
guarded and managed the “chorkis” and “haat chorkis”. Younger dadas lit the “kaali potkas” (much to
everyone’s annoyance). We kids were left with the “rong moshals” (good fun),
“tara baaji” (too simple) and “electric taar” (test of one’s patience!).
Right when we have had enough of these comparatively safe
and relatively boring firecrackers, we would signal to one another for taking
the game up a notch. With our eyes gleaming brighter than some of the
fireworks, we would quietly move to one corner. The unsuspecting might think we
were planning a crime (or sneaking out for a cigarette, like some of the adults
did). But, no. We were good kids (mostly 😉).
From a few kids’ bag of firecrackers, out came the notorious
“shaap baaji”. Not all of us had these, as some parents would refuse to buy
these smelly, pollution-inducing little devils. If you hadn’t “experienced”
them before, you would never guess how these tiny black “hajmola” type discs
could possibly turn into such weirdly satisfying black snakes, that “grew as
they burned”. Things usually diminish or shrink when burned. But not these
wondrous “golis”. They were like a phoenix of sorts (although, I didn’t quite
know what phoenixes were, back then). They would rise from the ashes…but also
turn into ashes. And while they did that, they would make everyone choke and
cough and suffocate with their pungent smell and thick, black smoke. A few tiny
black heads gathered in a circle, with a thick black smoke emerging from the
centre – that’s what the scene would have looked like from a distance!
“Orey tora bondho korbi
ogulo?”, some adult voices would float in. We would chuckle, ignore, and
light the next one up. I think it gave us a high. Or it could simply be “guilty
pleasure”.
I now wonder how something so weird and smelly, be such a
source of such unadulterated joy? And then I remember that we were the same
generation that was obsessed with “hojmis” and “churaans” and “bonkuls” and
“electric noon” and “jhaal chips” (that burned our tongues). Shockingly sour or
hot, and unapologetically mixed and moulded into mounds by dirty hands of the
roadside “thelawala”. We truly were the generation that had an “acquired taste”
for the weird, dangerous, harmful and often disgusting….
