[It’s time I said a few words, instead of leaving it all up to Julie – so here’s something that has been on my mind about firecrackers in India.]
My earliest memory of Diwali fireworks (I didn’t know about Diwali back then), was on my first trip across India nearly forty years ago. I knew nothing of India, and was simply travelling from the Pakistan border to Calcutta by train, staying in Sikh temples, as I had almost no money. I arrived somewhere in Delhi, which I now think was probably New Delhi railway station, around 11pm at night. With nowhere to stay, exhausted from the third-class train journey, and little idea where I was or what India was all about, I walked away from the station looking for a Sikh temple to stay the night. All around me firecrackers were exploding – it was an extremely disorienting experience. I recall finding a Sikh temple where they were not happy about me staying, but I knew enough of India by then to know you can ignore anyone’s protestations, so I just crashed on a walkway inside the temple grounds, and went to sleep with the war of Diwali pounding in my ears. I didn’t realise then that I already had hepatitis from Afghanistan. I suspect my disorientation was more than just the inexperienced novelty of Indian cities.
The next time I experienced this phenomenon was with Julie in Mt Abu, ten years ago. One night we went to have dinner at a prominent mansion-hotel on the hill overlooking the whole valley and lake. We chose this mansion because it looked a swish place and wasn’t too expensive – they even had beer. By sheer chance it happened to be Diwali, when millions of firecrackers detonate and light the sky across India … all night long, for days, in fact. Diwali night is the peak. We have since experienced this in varying forms at different places, but that night at Mt Abu was unique in many ways.
To our delight, we sat on a patio overlooking the valley of Mt Abu, having beer and dinner, with a traditional Rajasthani music group playing behind us. The sky was full of exploding light! I have never seen anything like that again. We watched the fireworks from the best position in the entire valley, with musical accompaniment. They were very good – I was itching to join in! Quietly smiling to myself, I reflected how rarely this kind of experience comes to one. It was visually the most spectacular performance of light we have ever seen in India.
But it wasn’t until this current Indian trip that I discovered the significant thing about Diwali: that it sounds very different in different places, and from different positions in each place.
The subsequent time after Mt Abu that we witnessed, or rather endured, Diwali, was at Kasar Devi near Almora. Sitting on the hillside, I could see the festival unfolding for the locals – they have seriously good acoustics: sound ricochets back and forth across the valley. And they have the whole valley with which to entertain themselves, the dispersed village spreading around the hill sides, in one blast of light and sound. It was only just beginning there, and they couldn’t contain themselves from testing out the crackers and rockets beforehand.
Then it started to build in Nainital. This was a far-out aural spectacle. Nainital is a lake at the top of a huge mountain, with higher mountains encompassing it like a giant horseshoe. This revealed to me that it was where you sat during Diwali that conditioned the experience. We were in the old Grand Hotel, up slightly from the lake, near the hill’s end. When a cracker ignited anywhere it resonated around the valley, highlighting the sound shapes. But when it went off at one precise area, closer to the valley opening, it caused the most extraordinary result – at no other point in the valley, as I listened carefully, did it create such an aural effect.
The sound might originate from a quieter cracker, but it amplified like a giant lion’s roar as it echoed through the hills, especially from the opposite hill. At night, this was a dark mountain strewn with light-points – some lights travelling sideways up the mountain roads, others stationary. The blackness of the mountain opened up in an insistent way, by amplifying the cracker sound like it was being driven from a mega Tibetan Valve Amp – all deep groaning and roaring. I was truly astounded. It was a real treat for a musician.
But then we came to Varanasi, Banaras, Kashi, Avimukta etc… the restaurant at the end of the known universe for Hindoos (don’t come for the food).
Varanasi is a harsh place. There is no denying this. It has put Westerners to the sword, mentally, for centuries. The firecracker display here was surprisingly low key. But the sound is what I want to talk about. In our room, the crackers went off in the ghat-alley below the window like bombs exploding – shocking us right out of whatever we were doing. It was a violent, deafening and hard-edged blast the couldn’t help but make us jump.
One night I went for a walk quite late. After a spooky relationship-fantasy-reality Indian movie we were watching had stopped half way, I decided to nip down to the local jetty and check the water. It was 10pm; everything was quiet after the day’s big Sun festival on the ghats. People were still sitting around with little lamps – they were going to sleep the night on the ghats as the morrow’s dawn was also a big deal for this festival. All was soft and beautiful. I noticed one of the stone mushrooms that the pandas sit under was empty. These aren’t only used by pandas or sadhus; they are public property. I sat down, as it was surprisingly clean, and I watched the Ganga flow murkily past. For some reason it always looked dirtier at night than by day, with the large, white night-birds sitting on floating debris, drifting down stream.
The firecrackers continued their interrupted explosions. It astounded me, the way it ricocheted across the whole three mile ghat wall of Varanasi. And the empty further bank, from my position, resounded a huge echo that bounced around for quite long. Considering how low the opposite bank is, it was surprising to hear such a good echo.
I was just sitting, relaxed as is the gentle mood on the ghats, when I suddenly realised I was listening to an artificially enhanced sound. Not just the massive intricate ghat wall effect, but something I couldn’t pin down – a subtle reverb which also amplified. It was very pleasant, like listening through good headphones in a studio. Then I realised…
It was the mushroom dome above me. I checked it – it was concave, basically cement I think, with some metal on the inside. It was big circular umbrella which, in the darkness, subtly rimmed your sight above in a strange way, like huge extended eyebrows. When I stood outside, the volume dropped and the sound harshened slightly (not always enjoyable in bunger season). Still, it was a good sound from the ghats reverberation, but when I sat down within the dome, resting against the centre pole, the sound enhanced dramatically. I was flabbergasted. What a good idea for a council to provide such enjoyable spots along the ghats! And how simple – I immediately wanted one in our own garden back home (wherever that is … been a long trip).
From this position, the sound deepened and softened (much the way I would modify music with my own quality-sound gear), which gave the big explosions a pleasantly enhanced effect. The Ganga flowing by… it certainly is a weird place, Varanasi.
But there was more to follow. Fifteen days after Diwali, there is another festival called Dev Diwali: the Gods’ Diwali. This is highly celebrated in Varanasi, as we were to discover. On the night, we took the (free) hotel owned boat into the busy river. Boat hiring jumps from Rs200 to Rs4,000 for this night, as multitudes cram in to see the evening spectacle where hundreds of thousands of small ghee lamps are lit all up and down the ghat steps and banks, extra music or religious events unfold at the main ghats, and every light imaginable is turned up full while millions of people come out with their families, in their best clothes, to stroll the Ganga banks.
Above and within this cacophony of sound and light, fireworks exploded in brilliant colours. It was truly a phantasmagorical scene, a brilliant extravaganza of Diwali for the Gods.
Michael
The mansion on the hill at Mt Abu
The firecracker smoke hangs around on the morning after Diwali at Mt Abu
Some of the valley below our room at Kasar Devi
Nainital – looking from our room to the valley opening
Dev Diwali night at Varanasi
Dev Diwali night at Varanasi