Hot Little Rockets

The 3rd song on the CBC Radio 3 podcast from some weeks back is called ‘Hot Little Rockets’, and I don’t appreciate the verisimilitude. The Supreme Court in India has banned the use of firecrackers, so they are everywhere. The ones called ‘aloo bombs’ you throw at people’s feet, the flare guns you hold in your hand, possibly with a small infant in the other, the larger ones I don’t know about because they sound like an aerial attack. The city has been smelling like Froot Loops for some time now. Now it’s going to smell of exhausted gunpowder, diesel fumes and sweets. The lane outside my office is covered in garlands. The pakora-walla only sells ladoo, and the rice sacks are covered with dry fruit trays.

I asked a woman from my office today about the Hindu gods of this occasion. Diwali is basically a festival of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, except in the East, where it’s a festival for Kali, the mother of Lakshmi and other very important gods, and in Kerala, where it isn’t a big deal at all. In the mela, with candles and shawls and other traditional things a gauntlet of skinny men with brochures tries to get me to buy vacuum cleaners and water purification systems. I would like a mosquito killer and some airmail paper, which seems to be impossible to find.

For our office lunch on Tuesday I had to wear a sari. Six metres of fabric, a petticoat and a blouse, and nothing to hold it together but gravity and a prayer. My friend’s cousin says ‘you’ve never done it til you’ve done it in a sari’. I’m sure that much silk has more uses than as an emergency parachute. Apparently the prospect of twirling a woman around like a top is very attractive. Legs and collar bones must be hidden under this delicate arrangement, but women show a foot of belly. Used to one concept of femininity, I find it hard to feel the breeze across my midsection and maintain modesty with my ankles. The aesthetic of covering up, leaving it to imagination and the shifting afternoon light, I do appreciate. The difference between home and outside, loved ones and strangers, gives protection to a richness in internal life.

Even with a sari I’m not quite local. Maybe especially with a sari. My Hindi sounds like yelling, even in my head. The auto rickshaws start in Hindi and let me get by with a 5 or 10 Rs tourist tax. It’s still not the same as knowing people in the streets, knowing when the music starts and where the buses go. I want to figure out how the supposedly progressive Defence Colony waste collection works. The well-combed children who sort through the garbage don’t need to go through my banana peels on the way to the tinfoil. There are precise signs in Hindi on the garbage collections points, but that doesn’t help me. I want to organize tours in old Delhi led by local boys, and use it to fund the arts and drama programs they run for themselves. I may need an alarm clock with a snooze button if I’m going to wake up in time for all of this.