Of Fireworks & IPL
You might have read about the
fireworks mishap which happened at Kollam in Kerala a couple of days before.
The state has not witnessed a tragedy of that scale in a long long time. The
loss of lives is on such a large scale that an entire village is affected by
the accident. I can’t even imagine the grief that would have blanketed the
small village on that fateful early morning. All one can do is to hope and pray
for the families to find strength in this time of immense sadness.
The event has given rise to a
debate in Kerala, whether or not to ban fireworks during festivals. People of
my state are blessed with an abundance of education and awareness.Hence you might think that consensus can be arrived at easily. If you are
not from Kerala, you might wonder if it isn’t a binary decision and an easy one
at that. People are losing lives again and again. So why not ban the whole
exercise? Let me help you with a bit of perspective. Most of you would have
read about the ongoing drought in Maharashtra. Also, whether or not to allow
IPL to be conducted in Maharashtra. For those of you who are from Bombay and
who are passionate about cricket, this is not a binary decision, is it? When
you decide to say no to IPL, passion for cricket comes in between. When you decide
to say yes to IPL, you are faced with the extremely difficult life situation of
the farmers. This is what a Keralite goes through in the situation of fireworks
too.
I think complete prohibition
of anything will only lead to resistance, resentment and attempts to bypass the
law. What needs to be done is to
strengthen regulations. There are social media posts springing up everywhere
linking the regulation of fireworks to religion. I feel the moment we do that,
we are losing the perspective entirely. It is not a matter of faith or
religion. It is a matter of regulations and adherence to it. It is common in
our country these days to link anything and everything to religion. All this
does is hinder a constructive debate.
It is time we take one hard
look at the way we conduct festivals, many a time throwing caution to the wind.
If we can’t do away with the fireworks, we should agree to stricter regulations
and methods to ensure that they are adhered to.As far as IPL is concerned, it is a slightly easier choice.Imagine this. You go for the match, have a whale of a time and come back home thirsty as a crow.You reach for the tap and all it gives is air!
Very well said.
ReplyDeleteBut in the light of recent events i really think it's time to change. This goes for both, use of fireworks and elephants just for the sake of tradition it's well beyond time that we rethink our traditions.
we should start relooking at traditions without disrupting them but at the same time, without causing damage too our ecosystem too
Delete