Let There Be Light

Yesterday was Diwali - which is the festival of lights in India. Traditionally we light candles and diyas outside the houses on this day. Un-traditionally or rather according to modern tradition; people burn up thousands of rupees in firecrackers. I don't like firecrackers for two reasons:

1. In India, there is a large and unfortunate exploitation of women and children in the firecracker industry which is a very very dangerous one to say the least and these lives are almost disposable to the capitalists who just care about their profits. I don't support it.
   
2. They're just so LOUD! Okay, not all of them - but people around here have a strange, incomprehensible affinity towards the bombs and the crackers that just make way more than the legally permissable levels of noise. Its really ridiculous - they light a whole line of the them and just stand there with their fingers in their ears watching them burst for minutes on end... what's the point, I say? Where the HELL is the fun in that? To me Diwali is a reminder of how badly the world needs to see the light.

I was reminded of this song last night while D, Dada and I were lighting the candles:

Give me oil in my lamp;
Keep me burning, burning, burning,
Give me oil in my lamp,
I pray.
Give me oil in my lamp;
Keep me burning, burning, burning,
Keep me burning
Till the break of day.

Keep me burning for YOU!