Hair On Fire🔥

Has your hair ever been on fire? Mine has. I will come to that in a bit. 

2023, Mohali, India: 

This Diwali, I couldn't help but compare the spectacle to one a few decades past. Gone were the flickering diyas and joyous chaos of my childhood, replaced by strings of colorful LED lamps and a fireworks-ban-laced tension.

The night started as any other Diwali night would, crackers nearby and in the distance. Some loud, some louder, some not so. The local government had established a two-hour window allowing green fireworks. The public complied with the embargo. Alas, not all. A little after the curfew time, a series of enormous explosions shattered the silence, they rattled windows, and set off the alarm in a nearby car! And triggered my nephew as well, hair on fire he marched down to confront the miscreants. Words turned hot, tempers flared, and soon, our street became a battleground of booming defiance.

Words, like errant rockets, soared across the street, met with escalating pyrotechnics. Dismayed, my nephew's sister-in-law dialed the police, only to be met with an indifferent click. Three times. The cops, it seemed, were unwilling to douse the festive fire.

Frustration hung heavy, but then, in a Gandhian twist, our young brigade did something unexpected. They ignored the cacophony, drowned it out with their own laughter, quiet resolve and fine spirits. And what do you know? The fireworks sputtered and died; the rebels vanquished by peaceful indifference.

A victory, born not of passive resistance, but of a quiet strength, a refusal to be consumed by the flames of anger. Cooler heads (pun intended) prevailed. As I watched the embers of the night settle, I realized Diwali, like life, wasn't just about the bright explosions. It was about the flickering flames within, the courage to stand tall, even when your hair feels like it might catch fire. It was a Diwali lesson etched in quiet triumph, a reminder that sometimes victory lies not in conquering flames, but in letting them burn themselves out.

1973ish, New Delhi, India: 

The air was filled with the scent of gunpowder and the sky lit up with a kaleidoscope of colors, Diwali's fiery fingers painting the sky with vibrant streaks. On the third floor of my grandparent's house, my cousin and I, pint-sized pyromaniacs, were lighting clay diyas along the rooftop parapet, our laughter echoed through the night. Suddenly, a tug-of-war ensued over a candle. My uncle lunged; my cousin instinctively snatched back. I was standing right behind, my back towards him. The wick's flame, cheated, whipped across the air setting my hair ablaze. The world dissolved into a jarring symphony of screams and the crackle of burning hair and skin. A searing heat engulfed my head, the stench thick in my nostrils.

 

                                                                                 Sketch by Nikki Rangar                                                                                                       

"Hair on Fire!" My uncle's desperate roar cut through the noisy ear-popping night. He shoved my cousin aside, his calloused hands a whirlwind of frantic slaps, extinguishing the inferno before it could consume me. In that fiery embrace, I experienced the idiom, "hair on fire" literally - it is engraved forever in singed psyche and grateful tears.

 Note: Based on true events. Edited and embellished with help from Bard AI