When the sky dazzles in a million colors

For anyone who has grown up in India in a city like mine, you know it's Diwali when a firecracker is burst at the crack of dawn gently nudging you back to consciousness. It isn't even broad daylight by then, but you can tell in your sleep that the festival of lights is here from the feel of it, and a smile escapes you. You can feel the festive spirit and no matter how rotten your mood has been in the past few days, you can't help but feel good again. Call it a temporary escape from reality or what you will, but the joy in the air engulfs you completely and there is no escaping it.

There is a set routine to how it goes on Diwali. But when firecrackers are lit in the middle of the evening/night and Diwali has long gone by and the next one isn't due in several months, without turning on the television, you know that either it's the New Year's eve and the clock is about to strike twelve, or India has won a cricket match against some country or in a freak case someone is getting married.

Yesterday was different. Some freak decided to burst crackers at 12:44 A.M. When all the items on the checklist above were crossed out I got up to check the television. No Oscars for India and no matches won either. All was quiet after a hundred odd rockets had gone up. 1:44 A.M. And the freak isn't done yet. More fireworks. Out of his mind and won't be back in 5 minutes.

But a happy occasion it might have been for sure. The sweet smell of success after strenuous hard work, an ecstatic moment in the lives of the ordinary or the heading feeling of getting your love. Whatever it was, it felt good to be a witness to someone's celebration of life with a spirit that says "Never say die".