Firecracker Laws
Those aren’t mines going off, stupid. It’s Diwali.
Sushmita was cognizant of this when she woke up that morning, of course; but the sounds of Saving Private Ryan flung her off the couch at 6:32 P.M, leaving her discombobulated and pissed. Thankfully, at least her Merlot still stood as it should on the table, unfazed by the firecrackers.
She sipped. She sighed.
Oh, the halcyon days of thirty years ago! When white men (and women) would stare at her (and her husband) in the grocery store. How often she’d turn that corner at ShopRite— yes, right where the grapes merged with the root vegetables — and meet the lingering glance of a white couple focused on her skin.
“Oh, this? I guess I just applied a little too much cocoa butter today!” The remark would turn even less fairer folks scarlet.
Diwali never crossed her mind, let alone the thought of celebrating it in a land as civilized as the United States.
“Come now. You’re telling me you don’t miss it?” her husband Kishore insisted. His upbringing made him, through and through, a family man, and every November he would be plagued by a deep nostalgia for his neighborhood in Kolkata.
“What’s there to miss?” Sushmita replied.
“Everything! The food, the music, the fire — “
“All the things that aren’t here, you mean?”
This rhetorical question carried a caustic tone. A decade earlier, Kishore summarized to his father-in-law his reasons to leave India with two American acronyms: MIT and IBM. These acronyms — or rather the ideas they symbolized — filed for the newlyweds’ visas, purchased the plane tickets, and estranged families. As Kishore reassured, these upfront sacrifices did fulfill their promises of a handsome salary, but not soon enough to afford medical procedures for his father-in-law or fly Sushmita to the funeral. It was too late to be homesick.
Still, Kishore did indulge in the notion one year.
It was 1991, and Kishore had come home with a stash of firecrackers. Tiptoeing into the house, he made a hushed call for his three year-old son, and the two went out to shatter the silence of that November night with a series of crackles and blinding lights. Sushmita watched the not-so-secret celebration from the window, unamused.
Eighteen minutes, Sushmita counted. Eighteen minutes it took for red and blue lights to flood the neighborhood. It was the police.
“I’m sorry, sir. But we just can’t allow it,” said a stern voice.
Sushmita bore witness to her husband and son’s dejected march back to the house and listened as silence reclaimed the cul-de-sac. Silence followed Kishore home too. After telling his son to go to bed, he smoked a Marlboro in the kitchen, alone; he watched the glowing tip draw towards his lips and reminisced on those eighteen minutes of relived childhood. From that day, the holiday existed only in letters to family in India, but never again in conversation between husband and wife.
She sipped. She sighed.
Ironic, Sushmita thought. With Kishore gone, the holiday is a louder presence in her life than ever. The tireless ringing of her phone, the obligatory season’s greetings, the boisterous booming of Bollywood music, and that merciless barrage of firecrackers — hath Heaven no pity for an old woman who wants to nap and, every now and then, enjoy a glass of Merlot?
And now knocking? What next?
Sushmita threw open the door and stuck out her head.
“Yes?”
It was the police.
“Hi, ma’am. We understand that there’s a noise complaint.” The officer’s glance at her hair made Sushmita self-conscious.
“Why, yes, officer,” Sushmita said, combing her hair with her fingers. “I really hope I don’t have to explain. I mean, you can see the rascal children and their parents right over there.” She pointed at group of silhouettes: six adults and seven children scattered about the cul-de-sac. What a shame, she thought. Pushed into betrayal of her own neighbors! The Polish and Italian-American families who lived here before never forced her into such controversy; they were quieter with their customs. Oh, the halcyon days!
The officer cleared his throat. “Um, ma’am. Listen. I understand what you mean, I really do, but there’s nothing we can do here. There’s a holiday today — a, uh, Dee-wall-ee.”
Sushmita rolled her eyes at the word. “So there’s nothing you can do?”
“Nothing.”
Sushmita kept the officer a moment longer while she tried to collect a rebuttal, but it was clear: the halcyon days were no longer. She dismissed him.
Thus, the firecrackers claimed their dominion over the neighborhood, as they had in the last six years, and sounded even louder as the police car drew away. The officer was, at best, a messenger of Sushmita’s defeat.
Kishore’s photograph stood on the mantel, gleaming against the light of the firecrackers outside. Like the Mona Lisa, his portrait also had its moods. Today, it wore a boyish grin.
