Diwali is here. The kid at home wants a blast, literally. You want to go for softer crackers.
He would like, among other crackers, the ones with great bang value. Mellowed down by age, you would prefer the beauty of a flower pot erupting in colour and light against the backdrop of darkness or a ground spinner emitting bright sparks while doing mad rounds on the floor. While standing before the shop, your mind drifts.
There’s something fascinating about fire. Generations apart, you and your children may look at it differently, but the attraction to it transcends time. It’s a force of both creation and destruction.
Human life took a giant leap after our ancients understood it. Without it there would be no civilisation, no absolute dominance of humans in the animal world. But people were quick to understand its destructive power as well.
As we witness long-distance missiles in the ongoing Middle-East war or the Russia-Ukraine conflict reducing targets to a haze of flames and smoke, we stay more amazed than shocked. Fire has amazing potential. Besides emitting heat, light and smoke, it signifies power too.
But the beauty of it is that this is the only element of nature we have some control of. We cannot control water or air. When waters turn wild, like in a tsunami or a flood, we can do little but stand helpless.
The same goes for air. When cyclones devastate our lives, we can only deal with its consequences. Prevention in either case is not in human control.
Fire is more com.
