Deepavali (also called Diwali), one of the popular Indian festivals was celebrated early this month. As a kid, this was one of my favorites because this is one festival when we kids got involved completely like in the run up to the festival, which involved purchasing and bursting crackers, eating sweets, meet with friends and family and wait a minute – get a new pair of clothes. Preparations for deepavali would start typically a week or so earlier. We would buy small quantities of firecrackers from the near by shops for the run up. A day or two before the festival, we would buy significant quantity of crackers from Bangalore’s city market wholesale or retail sellers. We always compared our scale of celebrations with our neighbors who some how beat us in the quantity and the variety of firecrackers. Firecracker packing material, left overs made up majority of the roads and the front yards and definitely this was one of the indexes used to measure the level of celebrations!
Over the last few decades, there have been some changes to the firecrackers supply chain and the ways the firecrackers reach common people. After a major fire accident destroyed many firecracker stores in city market area, retail firecracker sales moved to open grounds where vendors set up temporary stalls. These vendors attract budget customers who constitute significant population. As always, the “big” customers have their own sources: some go to the wholesale stores in city market area, some to the TamilNadu bordering town, Hosur. Some even buy crackers directly from the manufacturers at Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu. Firecracker buying associations are common sight in many organizations. People enroll themselves in such associations to gain a) collective discount based on the large base; b) Make monthly contributions towards the firecracker fund to get avoid huge expenditure in one particular month. These associations perform quite well, meet their objectives and offer token gifts to keep their customers happy. Association representatives visit manufacturers well in advance, negotiate prices and the custom packing. In addition, it is common to find businesses, industries distributing sweet boxes to their employees. Deepavali is the major motivator for retail sales in India and is comparable to Thanksgiving or Christmas sale in the USA. Retail stores, popular shopping streets, malls are decked with lights, decoration stuff and the ambience is simply superb.
In Bangalore, I found that the business community spends significant amount of money on firecrackers compared to the salary class. In addition, many big restaurants, apparel shops conduct fireworks display, which are open to common people. Wilson Garden Janata Hotel’s fireworks were a delight to watch and people would flock around the hotel around 11PM on the deepavali night. After cordoning off the roads, the hotel staff would entertain the people with the fireworks display for over 30 minutes.
Off late there is awareness about noise pollution, safety and the child labor used for manufacture of firecrackers. These may eventually reduce the firecrackers sales but cannot take away the spirit of the festival. Deepavali will continue to be one of the most celebrated festivals in India and definitely a great booster for the local economy.
