Traditional Crackers Missing During Diwali Festival

Widely popular in the past were Sisindri (a kind of jumping crackers), Uppu Potlalu (bough of Palmyra tree burnt and buried on it in the soil, mixing crystal salt, folding in a cloth for some hours), Ulli Tapakayalu (crackers that appear like onion and can be blasted without fire by throwing them one by one on the floor) and Goda Tapakayalu (crackers thrown on the wall to explode with a loud sound), power pots made of clay, and Mathabulu--which emits colourful sparkles, all made and kept ready at homes a month before Diwali. Now, Sisindrilu and Uppu Potlalu have vanished fully from the scene while Sisindrulu are made and sold in some places.

The government meanwhile prohibited clay-made power pots.

People gave up making the traditional crackers due to lack of time and are not encouraging their children in making such crackers due to their education and safety concerns.

Crackers enthusiast G VenkateswaraRao reminisces that youths used to fire such crackers on a large scale. But, nowadays, they are engaged in jobs as software engineers etc, and are not able to spend time burning fire crackers. They do not even have time to visit their native places on such occasions, he notes.

Meanwhile, the Diwali spirit was dampened due to rain from Saturday to Sunday morning, which also affected the sales of crackers this time. Many people started purchasing crackers on Sunday. Cracker sellers said that last year, they incurred heavy losses as hugestocks remained waste due to lack of good sales.

This year, however, the sales may be better as there is a big hike in cracker prices. The hike is about 2 to 4 per. However, the prices of locally made crackers have increased by 20 per cent.