The Special cracker... A short story

Ting Tong.Ting Tong Pattu, presses her fingers excitedly on her doorbell. Reva ben the domestic help of the household opens the door; Pattu flings her bag on the sofa, removes, rather dumps her shoes in the shoe rack and zooms in, to the kitchen where her mother is busy stacking some washed crockery a part of her Diwali cleaning.

‘ Yahoooooooooo, Mummy, exams are over, no more padhai for one month'.
‘Yes beta, Ave tamera Ghodha chutha.’ She remarks in Gujrati (A Gujrati proverb implying the horses are free from their stable to run)

‘Mummy, give me money, we are going to Goldcoin, the fancy ice-cream parlour for our exam over celebrations’.
Pattu and her schoolmates had a ritual to celebrate the end of their exams over an ice-cream.

Ok beta, but how was your paper? Paper was ok. So are you going to be first in class?
No, Mummy, how can I come first, there are many more smarter girls in the fourth grade.

As the days pass by Pattu`s excitement of Diwali vacation slowly fizzles out just like the dough fizzling out in circles from the sancho into the frying pan to form chakris which her mother is busy preparing. Pattu`s father who had just come out of an elephant bath and is a total foodie, grabs a bite of the chakri.
‘Hmm, its not soft enough, you haven’t mixed the dough well. When you do the next lot call me, ill show you a better method.’

Papa I am really bored of my vacation, I have nothing to do. This was a very common line repeated by Pattu every vacation.

Ok, Lets do some Rangoli, her father remarks as he gulps down another glass of water.

Rangoli session was something Pattu, always looked forward to. It was like an event for her to see her Papa paint and stroke design after design. The peacock was his favourite caricature. Pattu was not really an artist, but her Dad allowed her to fill in the colours, for which she often made a mess, but Papa always obliged. As he stroked the brushes to dish out design after design, Pattu kept pestering her Dad with the weirdest of questions that a 10 year old would have.

Papa when will go on a holiday? Papa were you a artist like MF Hussain? Papa how many prizes did you win when you were fourth standard? Papa why can I not draw like you? The list would be endless

Papa this year, Dadaji is in America so we will not have to hide the firecrackers. When are you getting the firecrackers? Bubli( a neighbour & friend) and her brothers sisters already started bursting crackers yesterday. When will you get firecrackers for me?

Beta, this year I have a better idea of firecrackers, how about bursting some special crackers? Let me finish this Rangoli and tell you about it. After finishing the Rangoli, he takes a seat on the big fat sofa, the sofa is over 30 years. It’s a standing trophy of the prosperity that the family has achieved over the years. It’s the same sofa, where Pattu`s Dadaji was interviewed by Marshall & sons and that job at that time had saved his six member family from stepping on the line of poverty.

Papa,what is this special cracker?

Pattu tell me one thing, when you burn those crackers the happiness that you get is so momentary, it just dies in a matter of few seconds. This Diwali, why don’t you bring happiness and joy in the lives of those children who can probably not buy any crackers and who will probably not even have enough sweets like you.
Although Pattu, was quite a brat being the only child and having been pampered to the brim, strangely she had a good heart and was quite a giving child.

The legacy of this special firecrackers began, as Pattu and her dad walked into the crowded Dadar market, bought some 200 steel glasses, chocolates, paper whistles and cellophane paper. Back home. Pattu was excited with the job of filling those steel glasses with sweets and tying cellophane paper on the glass

The next morning, the family zoomed on the Mumbai- Goa highway and almost 110km later their car halted at a school in a sleepy hamlet in Konkan. Pattu, had never really seen a village in her life, and was amazed to see mud houses, men & women scantily dressed & the starring eyes. The schoolmaster rang the bell as a sign of calling all the children in the school ground.

After a series of sounds of thumping feet’s, screams and laughter, children in all shapes and sizes gathered outside the school. Some of them barely had any clothes on them, but what they all had was a smile on their face, and the curiosity to find out what was going to happen here, they looked at the huge tall sahib, who had his fancy camera pouch tied around his waist, looking more like a gun. They had seen this sahib before but they looked in amazement at the girl with the hair cut of a boy, and the sethani wrapped in a bright yellow and red saree.

The schoolmaster announced, “Sagle ek line madhe ubhe rahava” ( Stand in one line). As the children left the school compound they flinged the cellophane paper in the air,blew the paper whistles and gulped the chocolates in to their hungry mouths. The atmosphere was full of noise and celebration and as Pattu looked at them, she felt so happy and satisfied; this special cracker had given her even more joy then any other firecracker she had ever burst. And after that day she never lit even a single firecracker, the only thing that she wanted to light was the special cracker. As the sparks it created were magical