I used to , now I don't....

Every year, during Holi, Diwali, Ganapati or Navaratri, I end up saying this to someone.

I used to play with colour, now I dont.
I used to burst crackers, now I dont.
I used to do the ganapati pooja, now i dont.
I used to play dandiya, now I dont.

Why did I stop? When did i stop ? My earliest memories of playing with colours are near my house in Prabhat road lane #2 . After a big breakfast, at about 11 or so I would go down to my friends building where the whole gang would assemble one by one.
I remember the frenzied filling of water balloons and filling up your own bucket. Then when you had enough, or thought you had enough, you launched an attack on someone else.
I remember that weird indescribable feeling , when the sun bore down on you and no one poured water on you for a good ten minutes,you felt dirty and you could suddenly smell the colour on your body. Then you would end up pouring a bucketful on yourself just to stay in the race.
I never put any oil on my body or my hair before I went out to play, I had no older brother to tell me these tips. Now I think all my hair problems are because of the damage the colour did to my hair... !! I remember coming home and just tossing the dirty clothes in a bucket. Mostly, they were discarded, but if they ever came back to my cupboard, I never wondered who had taken the pains to clean them.

Bursting crackers was a major event for me. Every year, my dad sued to increase the cracker budget by Rs.200. I ended up reaching Rs. 1600. He used to take me to this huge ground, where stalls would be set up. I would have a complete dictatorial say over what i wanted that year. After reaching home, I would make 4 neat lists, dividing the crackers for the 4 main Diwali events. The Laxmipoojan list would be the longest. Blowing holes in the cement walls , blasting rockets horizontally along the road... Ive seen and done it all.

The Ganapati festival used to be a very organized event . We would have all sorts of games.. chess, carrom, TT, badminton, gully cricket. We used to have a massive Ganapati Idol in one of the houses( by rotation) in our lane and the pooja was a be-there-or-get-left-out deal every day at 9 pm sharp. I even knew the words till a point in time !
The the skits and the dances. Our whole gang would practice for days to put up some really good performances. The visarjan was another huge affair. We would all wear white shirts and put the big vertical red tikka on our foreheads. If you were older, you got to burst the firecrackers on the way.



During navratri, we used to rent dandiya sticks and have a ball with some totally inappropriate music. No one knew how to play and some the entire playing field somehow leveled out.

I guess every average Indian has had similar memories. May be some have had it even better. Im just glad I didn't miss out on mine.

Somewhere down the line, I just stopped doing all of this. When I ask myself, why , I come up with unconvincing answers.

Did I stop playing with colours and water cause I was getting too messy ? Rubbish.
Did I stop bursting crackers because I was against child labour ? Nonsense.
Did I stop doing the Ganapati pooja because I suddenly felt less religious ? Hogwash.
Did I stop playing Dandiya because it was only a Gujarathi thing ? No !

Maybe I stopped looking hard enough for answers after a point. You know, you don't have to find the answers for every question.
You can always pass.