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I grew out of the whole crackers thing pretty early (I believe Std. 9 in school), and have since stuck to helping my mother and sister light lamps around the house. My wife is a lamps buff too so the tradition continues post-marriage.

I absolutely detest electric decoration lights, I'm an earthen lamps guy, out and out. It's quite a task keeping them all burning though, given they keep going out in the breeze or due to crackers exploding in close proximity. I do try to give something to the underprivileged, but stick to food or other items that they can enjoy without risk. I'd hate to gift a poor child crackers only for him/her to harm themselves playing with them unsupervised, as most poor kids usually are in our country.

For all of you planning to celebrate with crackers, please be safe and for those of you with kids, please don't let them use crackers unsupervised. Some crackers may be less harmful than others, but NONE are harmless.

Happy Diwali everyone.:thumbs up

Hey, Diwali is not complete without crackers. Atleast, I'll ensure to fire few crackers if not more clap: . Happy Diwali to all T-BHP friends!

Like they have abroad, we should also have a "City/ Town Fireworks display" which the public can enjoy.

I can't stand crackers and loud noises because my beloved dogs get very upset at them.

I am glad that urban India is waking up to the fact that crackers pollute the atmosphere and the incidence of burning crackers is coming down, year by year.

As I already mentioned, kids love it. Let them enjoy for a day. So much pollution happens everyday, crackers or not. How many of us pontificating here about pollution will leave our vehicles at home even for a day and take public transport?

Leaving aside all that, it is a fact that a lot of families in and around Sivakasi depend on this trade for their livelihood. I know quite a few of them. And they have kids too. They have already been hard hit this year due to illegal cracker imports from China.

Talking about crackers from China, I remember a point I read about them recently. It seems the chemical allowed in Indian brands is Pottasium nitrate, which is highly stable. But the Chinese ones seem to use Pottasium chloride, which is highly unstable during storage; meaning even a violent jerk can set them off. And they are much too powerful when compared to our crackers. Which means, where a 5 feet gap is enough to stay out of harms way with ours, one will need minimum double that distance for Chinese ones. If anybody has bought them, please don't leave your children alone to light them. Stay by their side and supervise strictly.

Gansan,

This is good input. Is there any specific brand which sells these chinese crackers or do all brands have them? Basically want to know how to identify and stay away them.

thanks

I stopped bursting crackers 4 years back itself.The reason behind it was I had bought a pet dog 4 years back,What I have noticed is when I burst crackers or someone else burst crackers in the society my poor little baby (I.e My Pomeranian,I named her Pixy)starts crying and starts going to the corner of the 4 walls due to the heavy sounds that comes out from the bombs and what I have realized after this is ,we are polluting our motherland where already there Is alot of pollution in it and we are making the other animals sick, which are on the street as well as the other animals which are in the form of pets.This is my point of view.I'm sorry if u guys are against me.

Indian brands do not sell them, they are fighting them. So stick with the popular brands like Standard, Cock or Lion. They will be safe.

Well, pontificating maybe but the loud noises irritate me no end these days. I also burst crackers as a kid and loved it. But stopped sometime in school and have never burst since. I pity the old people and pets who have to suffer at this time. But to each his own. We already pollute the atmosphere it seems so there is nothing wrong in adding more it seems. Good luck.

Same here!! The loud noises really irritates the life out of me. I do not understand what is the fun in bursting those loud crackers?? I agree that kids enjoy the colorful sky shots, sparklers, flower pots, chakra etc. These are nice to see and don't intrude on others privacy with loud noise. But i totally do not understand the purpose of those bombs & other loud crackers which just make noise. I too stopped bursting crackers some time in school. Now my kid has turned 3 and started understanding crackers. But he too detests the loud sounds and gets scared of them instead of enjoying them. So getting him some sparklers so he can enjoy them and a few sky shots. Thats about it for Diwali this time. Will help wife decorate the house with those small oil lamps!

Looks like I didnt miss it. One of the temples here organize burning crakers in a secluded area which is cordoned off so you can safely burn crackers.

It does get a little crowded with lots of smoke but the crackers(mostly Anar, chakri & stuff) are not too loud & are relatively safer.

I stopped bursting noisy crackers a long while ago. I have seen the effects the loud noises have on elderly people, babies, heart patients and also on pet animals. The most affected are the birds with no place to go what with all smoke and noise.

Although I still enjoy relatively noiseless crackers like anar and fuljhadi for the benefit of my very young daughter. My wife holds her away while I light up some of these crackers.

I am not against bursting crackers since they are also an indispensable portion of Diwali but I am totally against crackers with extra loud noise (some having the potential to crack glass windows) and specifically against bursting them at unholy hours like after 10 PM.

Perhaps by jolting / surprising / scaring other ... ?
People may not agree with what I say, but then how else do you explain this act by children done on streets, especially to those driving on two wheel!

Or by adolescents grabbing the entire road for 15 minutes.

Or by adults doing the bursting during the wee hours at night/morning.

Please do not underestimate the evilness of general humans. One does not need to be a Hitler to show his true colors.

Now that you bring it up, it is actually food for thought! Are we really stooping down so low for cheap thrills that we have to scare others by bursting crackers to get our share of thrills...? Grabbing the road is done by adults too here in Bangalore where they are not bothered about holding up traffic and burst a 10,000 wala X 2 peppered with some bombs in between which takes anywhere between 10-15 minutes to finish.

I'm of the view we should try to see the good side of people, but some of the things people do makes one wonder if we're all inherently evil and I'm a fool not to resign to that fact.

I've had crackers thrown at me multiple times (while walking, riding and driving), my neighborhood kids recently caught hold of a small kitten, tied a garland type cracker to its tail and set it off (I told the kid I'll put crackers in his knickers if I ever catch him do that again, see how he likes it), adults in my own building setting off loud bombs before dawn, my entire street blocked off by a bunch of rowdy, drunk do-nothings who were celebrating Diwali well past midnight. A few kids around my building wanted to use my car's exhaust pipe as a cannon to set off bombs, go figure. Can't repeat what I told them here.:Frustrati

Am sure most of us have a story to tell after this festival, just like we find loads of morons on road (while we drive/ride). here in this case probability is higher.

On the last day, which is the "shop" puja where almost almost all shopkeepers celebrate it with sweets and crackers, unfortunately i had parked my bike close to a shop which is the parking area for bikes. a shopkeeper decides to burn the 1000wala right in front of his shop which was just a feet away from parked bikes/my bike. i watched helplessly till the last one fired off and once the sanity was back i saw the paper pieces burning in the engine area, the horn wire got slightly damaged luckily they dint fall near the carb.

On questioning the shopkeeper, he tells me that's the way it is and since nothing happened he asked me to move on. this fired me up and i made the shopkeeps day eventful by throwing some colorful words at him.

Many get sadistic pleasure by behaving irresponsibly during this festival but their are loads of selfish/self centered people who make it worse by such acts!