Ballad Of The 'BIJLI BATTLES'

All the blame goes to the wonderful and joyous festival day of Diwali.........

A day most synonymous with the usual things like festive mood, happy people, little kids showing off their new dresses, gluttons getting fatter....but the thing that makes it STAND OUT are the FIREWORKS with their wholesome promise of thrills and spills galore.
Things only got better, when the gang(my friends and I)decided to stay back and have fun...( i say so keeping as straight and innocent face as i can).

With more than a K's budget and armed with words, a purchase of 2K odd priced fireworks were made with ruthless baragining from our side cutting the price short.

Little known to us, 5 seemingly small insignificant packets were to stick with us as the tale to be told for long............They were the Bijlis.......(For the lesser enthusiasts, they're the little red things that give out a good pop).

And so came Diwali..........Early morning visit to the temple completely nullified by a SENSATIONAL SIESTA, gave way to the evening.........

Things kicked off with a defeaning bang, almost quite literally when the ATOM BOMB's rolled out and as would always the traditional LAKSMI crackers took their rightful place upon the THRONE OF FIREWORKS which got better when some of us got a bit daring and lighted the things and threw them when the time was ripe.......T'was beautiful.....Mid air blasts...........

All that remained were the aerial shots, rockets and the bijlis, but it was too early in the evening to spew out rockets, so then THE MADNESS BEGAN................

SITUATION:

A solitary agarbathi stick pre-lit and used, 5 packets of the Bijli Bangs, A stolen matchbox with rapidly diminishing number of sticks, a candle which just refused to stay lit for more than 20 seconds but the best of the lot were....................14 dangerous GUYS who wanted to SEPERATE THE MEN FROM THE BOYS.........

It wasn't planned or intended but the group just split up into two factions, one group clinging on to the candle and the matchbox and the other well settled with the agarbathi.......Two teams with each trooper with a handful of Bijlis(henceforth will be referred AS THE B'S)........On either side of the road, Armed and Dangerous..........

Candle Team(me here):
My friend holding on the candle with his left and the B's peeping ever so closer to the naked flame. The thing was that everyone had to light the b's using the candle and it certainly becomes tougher when an over-enthusiastic me managed to extinguish the flame everytime i light, causing great pressure on the candle team specially after the skillfully(or maybe even luckily sometimes)avoiding the torrential throw of b's from the other side.
The team was handicapped but not losing.....guys from our team knew that a throw to a right place on the opposite front would cause enough chaos for our team to recuperate........
And so it happened...... a well launched b straight to the heart of the enemy circle was time enough for the candle team to stage a fight back.

Agarbathi Team:
This team had a stroke of cleverness early on when they seized the agarbathi stick making their job of lighting the b's a bit easier than for the candle team. Had it not been for their hasty and frightened disposal(counting out the ones that hit my teammates squarely on the shirts) they would have shared the spoils a long time ago, but nevertheless, they were the team clearly calling the shots on the battle. They marched forward in royal fashion, towards a team with distorted chemistry in front of the candle flame.............BEFORE...........

OK.......While all this was happening, we were the sight to behold, near 20- odd faces staring at awe at what we were doing......playing like little kids, they might think(but you couldn't deny.........WE HAD STYLE), and all cracker fearing crackpots who had to cross the NO MAN'S LAND OF THE BATTLEFIELD.........were swearing at us freely and hindi being their favourite language( M____t's, B_____t's) were abound BEFORE.............the star turn around occured.......

THE STAR TURN AROUND:
Our territory was being invaded, they had breached our walls and were firing steadily..........but then as fate would have it..............
A brave soul from our team dared to be different, once the enemy had entered our territory, deep enough to not exit quickly enough......this brave soul had the audacity to enter the red zone of the opposition.....and with one sudden swift movement(more a rush a blood to the head.....it happens as he told us later), STOLE THE AGARBATHI from the tight clasp of the agarbathi team, leaving them in the lurch..........

MUHAHAHAHAHA.......A cruel twist of fate had robbed the battle spoil for the Agar.....Not any more....Ammo-Less team.
BUT WE WERE HONOURABLE MEN............After driving them out of our area, the candle was thrown to them seeing as we needed the competition............frantic cries and desperate attempts to reclaim the agarbathi were in vain as the hero proved to be more competent in warding off trouble..........

And so after several misfires, direct hits, near misses, burnt trousers, Bijli stamps and surprisingly even own goal bijlis (by the star......hence dishonoured impromptu), we soon found out that Bijilis worth 200 bucks can only be fun time for only so-much time and hence at last, when the remaining number of B's were down to 10......a truce was called and the last B's cherished...............(however many were used in a manhunt, for a common target....afterwards).


Seeing the instant success of this franchise.........next diwali promises to be nothing short of anticipatory as plan to follow a set of guidelines for the battle
1. Fixed no of packets for each team
2. Each team gets 1 candle 1 matchbox and thankfully......1 AGARBATHI
3. Stealing is strictly forbidden
3. Teams are predetermined, switching not allowed.....
4. Common targets(essentially for fun) are dealt with at last.

The punishment for any sort of violation to the above rules is to eat at the mess, when all the other(your order of parathas gets cancelled) puritans are eating something much better outside.


After the washing of hands greased with combustible material, mind filled with fireworks(pun intended), we had to do the last thing logcially possible..............go out and eat the VICTORY DINNER.........this time neither won...............BUT...........

THE TRUCE NEED NOT ALWAYS BE THE TRUTH.................