THREE INTIMIDATING FESTIVALS OF INDIA

THREE INTIMIDATING FESTIVALS OF INDIA

HOLLI : When I was young I have enjoyed this festival. But now a days people celebrate this festival in a dangerous way. If u go out in the city , you will be stopped after every 1 km by a crowd , demanding money on the name of festival. You are literally forced to give money. In this festival there is a tradition to sprinkle colors on each other or to smear color on the face of each other. Earlier on people were using mild and non-toxic color. You can easily remove it from your face or clothes with water only, but now a days people play Holli with the colors made from harmful chemicals. These colors irritate and damage your skin and in some case cause for the skin reaction. These colors might damage your eyes too. Some people use wall paint , mud , dirty water etc. to play Holli. Now a days you will find mob having drunken people rampaging the city on bikes in a dangerous manner. Very unsafe for girls to go out during these festival, as any stranger or a group of people can do mischief with girls on the name of the festival. More over in the evening there is an event of Holli fire , where you will find a Holli fire after every 200 meters. And because of so many Holli fire there is a smoke all over, which pollute the air and it is a waste of wood too. There should be very limited number of Holli fire.
So now a days I find this festival unpleasant , unhealthy , unsafe and not environment friendly.
DIWALI : The longest festival among three. Mini vacation for schools ,traders ,shopkeepers , factories etc. Indian new year begins during this festival. On the new year day people go to each other place to wish new year. The most charming part of this festival is fire works. But now a days it is very unsafe as you are walking or driving on the road and one of the fire cracker might catch you and burn you seriously. Mostly children are the victims while enjoying fire works as there is no control on the quality of the fire crackers. In many cases fire crackers bust in your hand . Shops where people go to buy these fire crackers are not well equipped for any serious incident of fire and there are number of fire cracker shops in a very small congested area. what happen if one of the shop catches fire. I can’t conceive of anything more horrible.
Almost every family out on the street or on the terrace at night for the fire works. This produces too much smoke and noise. You find difficult to breath, small babies scream and cry for hours . In the town and villages there are some incidents of whole house caught in fire because of flying fire crackers. So I feel very much unsafe and terrified during this festival.
UTTARAYAN : This is my favourite among these three festivals. Since childhood on every Uttarayan I do fly kites with my friends. Whole day whole family on the terrace, enjoying the atmosphere , food with family and friends. There is one old problem . Small boys from poor families run here and there on the roads to catch kite, and get seriously injured by vehicles. Riders also get injured. Some time in trying to save these boys , two or more vehicles collide. But now a days a new problem started. In Uttarayan string that is use to fly kites is coated by the powder of glass to make it sharper. So one can cut others strings of flying kite and have fun. But now a days this string is also cutting the throats of bike riders on the roads. Many people have died . Isn’t it horrific ?And on every Uttarayan number of this type of incidents is increasing. In small town because of narrow streets and roads this problem does not occur very often. I don’t know but there must be some solution of this problem.