DIWALI - That time of the year when almost everyone who wants to be "politically correct" stands up and asks for a blanket ban on fireworks, crackers, etc.

Urban citizens try and find out different ways of making their kids more "eco-friendly" in their celebrations. Schools and teachers do their bit but asking children strictly not to burst crackers. So end result, No "rockets", No "phuljaris", No "lakshmi bombs" and so on... and in some ways, lesser of a celebration by the kids, nowadays.

Many NGOs, "environment-loving" people also wake up right on time to make all the "right" noises about the various types of pollution this causes and how it effects our lives in different ways.

My own view notwithstanding on the merits and demerits of firecrackers, I thought lets give it a little detailed analysis of the key problems that many people pick on the "fire-cracker" menace.

1. Causes air pollution

And so do factories, industrial chimneys, sewage, your building generator set (that hasn't been serviced for decades), your diesel car, your second-hand car which hasn't been properly serviced for the past couple of years, Traffic congestion, greenhouse gases from your refrigerators & ACs, political rallies, religious events, etc. Remember even cooking causes pollution - 30% of the 4.3 million who people die of this each year are in India.

Vehicles standing at toll nakas, cars/lorries stuck in mile-long traffic jams probably cause equal if not more pollution.

Chemicals used by us in normal daily life such as soaps, surf, nirma, etc used for washing clothes, cleaning bathrooms, hospitals, etc.

Every year >200 million tonnes of coal replacement worth of fuel wood and biomass is burnt to meet our country's energy need for cooking and other domestic use. Indian stoves in use are less efficient thereby producing more smoke and air pollutants per kilogram equivalent.

2. Causes Noise pollution

Throughout the year, Arnab Goswami, Companies - small and large, loudspeakers for political and religious purposes (and in some daily), bikes without or with modified silencers, truck horns, heavy vehicles, etc. probably cause more noise than crackers do on a single day / weekend.

And lets not even talk about badly maintained lorries, trucks and State Govt buses.

The biggest culprit is motor transport - For eg. in Balasore (rural MP), it was found that the noise created by the traffic was way more than the permissible range 70dBA. On finding out the noise created by individual vehicles, it was found that all of them created noise more than the allowed range.

For some people living in apartments, even children playing are a source of noise pollution and want them banned - maybe we should go ahead and ask children to stop playing !

3. Child labour used in cracker factories

Industries, large/famous companies, etc. employ more children than you can even think of. Remember getting any child less than 17 years of age to work at your home/office in any capacity with or without compensation, wages or profit, part or full time is child labour.

Do we know that 90% of child labour is in rural areas, 50% of schools don't have a building, 40% don't have a blackboard and so on.

Did you know one of the biggest employers of child labour is the Diamond (and Gem) industry ! So the next time you buy yourself or your spouse a gem - however small or expensive - you know what to remind yourself of. The other top contenders are Silk, Carpet weaving and Domestic labour !!! And you thought that the fireworks industry is the "only" one to employ child labour.

On a personal level, I completely agree with many points of pollution - agreed it causes a lot of disturbance to elderly and sick folks, spoils the environment in and around where we stay, clogs gutters with all the waste paper, etc. etc.

We all know there are restrictions laid out by the authorities - some of them sound ridiculous though. For eg. Firecrackers can be burst only between 6am and 10pm, but all of south india celebrates Deepavali, early morning on "Naraka chaturdashi" day and everyone ends up actually breaking the law by bursting crackers in the early hours of dawn ! (Many times, as they say, the law is an ass).

On a lighter note, the smoke from the crackers (in a limited way) is good for killing insects, mosquitoes, etc. ;-) So lesser chances of dengue, chikungunya, etc....which we and the authorities are not able to control/minimize.

The money spent on crackers is going back to give a livelihood to extremely poor people in the rural areas who are involved in this "business". Most firework manufacturing units nowadays are "home-based" and this is probably their only means of livelihood.

This is similar to the conundrum we face on seeing a beggar at the traffic signal - most times we don't give him something because we think it will encourage his begging, probably not realizing that he's begging because he doesn't have any other option.

There are people who advise others to spend the "crackers" money and give it to some NGO or donate it to someone - I could say the same of the money they spend on their cigarettes, drinks and whatever else they "enjoy" ! What is good for the goose should be good for the gander ! To each his "enjoyment" ........ but as they say let's "Enjoy, responsibly" !

Let's not get distracted and drawn away by many "well-meaning" people, NGOs (most of which are funded by other countries, missionaries, etc.) and give up on our little pleasures, traditions and so on.

Just stopping children (and adults) from bursting firecrackers isn't going to help make the world a better place. This year, most of the firecrackers have been approved as per the acceptable noise limits. But then it doesn't mean less air pollution. Nor does it mean the end of child labour. Crying hoarse about the "fire-cracker" menace seems to be a classic case of missing the woods for the trees. But it's a start, clearly, there's a lot more to be done - by each of us on a daily basis and not just during "Diwali".

Oh..someone's at the door.... Ah ! its Raju - the 12-year old boy in our apartment complex come to collect the keys of my car to clean it ! Gotta to go and give him instructions......

Till next time, then (whenever it is) !