A quiet Deepavali anyone?

A quiet Deepavali anyone?
DH News Service, Bangalore:

This Deepavali, it could be more light and less sound. With the festival of lights just round the corner, people are seen making last minute purchases. However, when it comes to crackers, many customers are saying no to “heavy-sound” crackers and, instead, are opting for fancy, light-duty items like flower pots and sparklers.

Cracker distributors and stall owners in Bangalore say that the number of people opting for light-sound crackers has increased over the last few years. Keeping this in mind, the stall owners too have started to display more fancy items on the shelves. “Sale of crackers which produce noise is on the decline. Sparklers and flower pots are the in-thing,” Suryaprakash K, proprietor, SLN Crackers, says and adds that permissible sound decibel limits have been mentioned in most of the heavy-sound cracker packs.

Further, Suryaprakash says that this year, there has been a decline in the production of crackers, especially after the Tamil Nadu Government imposed a ban on child labour. “Most of us buy crackers from Sivakasi. Earlier, children were engaged in production of crackers in various units in Sivakasi. However, after the ban, there has been a gradual decline in the production,” he says.

Prices increase

The dip in production has also led to a default, marginal increase in the prices. Rajan E K, a stall owner, says the prices have gone up by nearly 10 per cent. Agrees Prashanth S, an IT employee. “This year, Deepavali will be a grand affair as my newly-married sister is coming home. Though I have picked only light-sound crackers, I had to shell out around Rs 1,000,” he says.

Children are also opting more for the fancy items and some have even requested their parents not to buy heavy-sound crackers. For businessman Ashwath Narayan, as well as his 14-year-old son, heavy-sound crackers are an absolute no-no.

“We have always avoided crackers that produce loud noise. Even my son prefers to light only those crackers which produce less noise. We are allergic to noise,” he says. However, Nanda Jagadeesh, her colleague, has a different story to narrate. Her son, who has just completed an engineering course, prefers to burst all kinds of crackers, heavy-sound included.