While the smoke of the crackers, already filling the air we are supposed to breathe, gave me a rash on my face and irritation in my eyes I spotted something which turned out to be rather amusing. My sister and I had taken my son for his night stroll and were scanning an obnoxious pile of waste left behind by people who had been lighting crackers in the compound some time back. As we agreed that we lived in concrete jungles surrounded by educated illiterates, we spotted a window grille that looked like it had been spat upon at by a monster. By a monster that spits out strings of lights.
What followed was ten minutes of bemused inspection of the lights that had been put up by people in our colony. We do this every year and every year it is equally amusing, if not more. The lights are splattered on random window grilles. However, what is amusing is the pattern in which they are splattered. It seems as if somebody who is artistically challenged has tried his hand at arranging the light strings and has, quite obviously, failed. As a matter of fact, he does this every year and the results are consistent. There are apparent attempts to create symmetric 'U' shapes and 'W' shapes; and it is evident that those attempts were left midway. The poor lights dangling aimlessly are proof enough. There are some who have put up lights very beautifully, in the shape of a diya or just something that does not prick your eye, besides the crackers' left over smoke. But the majority disappoints.
One window had vertical strings of lights - in all possible garish colours - that looked like a sketch book of a toddler. Only, the toddler had glowing crayons. There was one window which had a very neat right angle of red bulbs; the angles moving east and south. That was all. A window close by had giant bulbs put up in the most eccentric manner possible. Words fail me when I think of it. One household had taken out the light strings which they had put up in the loft last year after Diwali, and they came out all entangled this year. So they decided to put them up exactly like that on their window. Such an appealing sight!
One particular window had fallen short of lights, whereas one had so many that there was not enough space to accommodate them. In addition to the atrocious patterns, some lights glow in such horrible hues that you want to cry. I don't see why it is so difficult to put up something as simple as a string of lights in a manner that atleast doesn't hurt the eye, if not soothes it. I wonder if the people who've put up these lighted caricatures have even seen what their houses look like from the outside. When you take the trouble to purchase these pieces of wonder made in China and also put them up so that your windows draw attention during the festival, why not ensure that the attention drawn is not because somebody sustained an asthma attack by excessive laughter after looking at your window but because you have really done a decent job putting up those blighted lights. I drop it here now. My sense of aesthetics and creativity, both, have already fled; and OCD symptoms are increasing rapidly. The irony is that sight of lights becomes unbearable during the festival of lights.
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