Where are the animals and birds?

Brand New Dresses. Mass Movies. Mouth-watering Sweets. Inviting Savories and plenty of colorful Bang Bang! Yeah. The D-Day, Diwali Day, has surely arrived with a big bang! I am not going to touch upon the bad effects of bursting crackers - air pollution and noise pollution beyond the permissible limits, smog and garbage creation, fire accidents and fire injuries etc. I can very well give statistical data to prove them. Of course, Google will be my search God! In fact, everyone knows it too. So, what is it that I want to cover in this blog? In this blog, I wanted to cover the other important aspect that plagues a beautiful day as Deepavali every year - the animals and birds - who mysteriously disappear from the face of the earth for a brief  24 hour period and have their presence felt on the very next day itself if they are alive! 

My mom used to prepare and keep aside some hot plain rice for the crows on the verandah sill near the kitchen almost everyday before making ready the day's breakfast and lunch. However, when it is Diwali time, it is like everything in the universe has changed topsy-turvy.  She still completes with her cooking on time but there are no cawing crows or the scampering squirrels in the entire vicinity. It appeared as if their existence had suddenly become extinct like the Dodos and Dinosaurs! It's not just the crows and squirrels but also the cows, stray street dogs and other domestic animals, which roamed the roads with a high degree of freedom and independence, were simply not in plain visible sight. Just for a moment, I felt like calling up 100 to investigate the mystery of these disappearing animals and solve the riddle that happens on every Diwali but later realized that a special police team needed to be in place to trace their own men during the festive season!

According to the official records, the Chinese are credited with the invention of fireworks in the 12th century. As the days progressed, the eye-catching and many-hued crackers became a fascination and popular amongst the general population as the people were simply awed by the dazzling display of sparkling lights that lit up the skies. Eventually, it became an obsession for the masses to satisfy their thirst for material happiness. The idea had caught up with the rest of the world by then and almost all the festivals end up with the light and sound of the bursting crackers especially the dawn of every New Year. It was no different in a country like India which was already imbued and permeated with several festivals due to her support and tolerance for many religions.

When the terror demon Narakasura had died, his mother, Bhudevi, requested Lord Krishna to celebrate his death as a day of celebration and rejoice rather than as a day of mourning. This event may or may not have happened but the invention of firecrackers after the 12th century were the ideal boost for our masses to indulge and luxuriate themselves in the pyrotechnics and have continued the tradition as a customary practice on Diwali's day till date. Making and eating sweets, getting a new dress and watching a movie is perfectly fine. But, while you are bursting a cracker and reducing your hard-earned pile of cash to ashes, it creates tremendous problems for all the other living beings around us. Take the dog for example. The hearing range for the dogs is between 40Hz and 60Hz which makes their ears to be very sensitive than human ears. These sounds which may be loud and a source of happiness to us are actually high frequency tones that scares the dogs and puts them in a state of trauma. This makes them to be completely restless and go out of control by showing clear perceptible signs like shaking, trembling and excessive barking thereby driving them to take shelter under the parking cars outside. Unfortunately, they are not even safe there. The misfired rockets travel parallely to the ground and still hit their target like an eagle-eyed Olympic gold medal shooter! It's just not only the dogs but also the birds who fight for their survival during this so-called happy festive occasion. They dare not venture out from their nests during this time lest they want to be a Kentucky-Fried-Whatever bird classification! The smoke emitted by the bursting crackers can cause suffocation to the birds just like asphyxiation to us! Also, the rockets and all the other wonderful air-borne boom-boom can very well hit the cautious and scared resting birds on the trees thus resulting in their premature deaths. The same holds good for cows, squirrels, goats etc. At the end of the day, a life is still a life whether human being or non-human being. But, when I looked for any sign of dogs or cats or birds today, be it on the trees or under the cars, I was unable to find any thus lighting up my Sherlock brains to decode this million dollar conundrum!

I am not saying or advocating that no one should burst crackers. But, if we were to curtail and temper on the unrestrained nature of our violent happiness by showing a little bit of compassion towards other sentient life forms, Deepavali can truly become a joyous and rejoiceful day in the spirit of the letter of the word as requested by Bhudevi and granted by Lord Krishna.