Hey friends,
It’s been a while since I have published a journal entry and a lot has changed since then so let’s get into it.
Life Updates –
I had the fortune to be blessed with a baby boy recently and since then a lot of things changed in my life. I am enjoying everything about parenting. Well, not to gloat about it, but I did read a book called Unconditional Parenting, which sort of helped tremendously. Here is my book review of the same – HERE. If you are expecting or you are a parent already, it is highly recommended to give Unconditional Parenting a read.
Website Project-
I have been dreaming about this digital home for too long. 7 months to be exact. My desire for a website started when I started writing on Medium. I saw many established writers had a blog or an established website. I got inspired by their website and I wished to have all of my writings in one place, just like them. However, I had no idea how to build a website. I had a blog page set up a long ago on Google’s blogger service and I meant to have a professional-looking website. So I turned to YouTube and I saw countless “how to build your website” videos. Only a few really impressed me. Once I knew enough about building a website, I did a prototype with a free domain provider. More than anything it helped me with confidence.
I made up my mind about the type of website I wanted to build. What would be the content and how it would be aligned? What kind of site map it might have? Once you have clear thinking about the content, the building becomes a bit easy. With things figured out, I finally plunged and bought a 4-year domain name and hosting services on 29th Sept’23. Over the next 2 months, I was obsessed with building and rebuilding the pages of RollingTales.in. If you have any feedback about the website or its content, please let me know HERE.
I will write a detailed blog on my process of building a blogging website and the resources that I used. That may help some mad fellow like me. That brings me to the month of Nov’23. The Diwali month.
The Festival Of Light –
Ok, so unless you are living under a rock, you might already know that Diwali is the biggest festival in India. it’s the traditional festival of lights, it’s a festival of amazing lip-smacking snacks. This Diwali was extra special due to the arrival of our son. We all wore new clothes and we did all Poojas keeping him in my lap. Then after binge eating the homemade snacks, we called up our family members wishing them Happy Diwali.
Typically there is a tradition to create a model of a fort. Fort of Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj. It gives us an opportunity to study the marvelous architecture of the greatest king of all time. We already have a plan to create a model for next year with my son. Meantime we really enjoyed a model created by our society’s maintenance staff. They have created a replica of Pune’s very own Shanivar Wada. It is simply amazing. Have a look.
This is what I wore on Diwali night. Now, forget about my ravishing look for a minute and dive into a serious topic.
On The Climate –
Let’s rewind the clock back to say 1999. I was just a boy then. For me, I had no meaning in these Poojas or wishing our relatives. All I wanted was to burst crackers with friends. I usually had a bag full of crackers and we would wake up the entire building with our shenanigans. The thing I clearly remember is that even after bursting many crackers, the smog would lift. The sky would be clear and we never faced breathing problems.
Cut to 2023, and things have gotten worse. Despite clearly visible climate effects, we still prefer to bursting crackers. Unfortunately, firecrackers have gotten large, noisy, and polluting. Each one is louder than the previous one. Even while bursting, everyone is coughing. The smog is engulfing our society for days to come yet people don’t seem to realize when to stop.
I live in an area where our society is surrounded by small farming villages. If you take a stroll through these villages and newly built societies like ours during Diwali, you’ll find that the so-called nonliterate farmers are much more educated on the climate effect of Diwali than these high-class working IT individuals. All the garbage of firecrackers comes only from these big societies than from these villages.
As per the Air Quality Index published by Govt, Delhi – the capital of India is unbreathable. So the Supreme Court of India, banned bursting firecrackers throughout India. The sad reality is, this law is not followed by anyone, be it citizens or even Govt. After every Men’s cricketing World Cup match, tons of firecrackers are being lit up. We all are watching it live on TV. On the auspicious days of Diwali, the entire Ram Mandir area was lit up with firecrackers. The point is that if the Supreme Court was dead serious about imposing the ban, why would they let the firecrackers get manufactured in the first place?
The argument some Indians give is that why only bursting firecrackers at Diwali creates climate issues and not during the course of Xmas or Year’s End? These bans are being created to oppress religion etc.
Yes, my opinion on it is that firecrackers should not be used for any religious or nonreligious reasons. What kind of legacy we are leaving behind to the next generations if they are born with breathing diseases? Where they’ll have to buy oxygen cylinders to live on earth. There are many new ways we can light up the sky, for example with the use of lasers or drones.
Yet, we will be having the same argument during the Diwali of 2024 as well, that is for sure.
I can only hope that some sense prevails in the people of the world and we may look at climate effects more seriously.