Revellers feast eyes on sparkling night

KOLKATA: The city, on Friday, chose spectacular fireworks over noisy firecrackers as the celebrated Kali Puja.
Phuljhuris (sparklers), chorkis (wheels) and tubris (flowerpots) added zing to the celebrations.
Banned firecrackers — chocolate bombs and kali patkas — did make the occasional bang but the numbers were too few to make an impact.
The “noise-free� celebrations drew an overwhelming response from revellers as people thronged streets after dusk.
“It’s amazing how drastically the celebrations have altered. Till some years ago, we wouldn’t dare step out of house on Kali puja. The bombs would scare our wits away,� said north Kolkata’s Swati Sen, enjoying the evening out with her husband and children.
“It’s definitely more enjoyable this way. I can’t imagine why people indulging in such crazy celebrations in the past,� said Sanjay Ray of central Kolkata.
A heart patient, he would suffer a torrid time during the festive season each year till West Bengal Pollution Control Board and Kolkata Police cracked the whip in the late 1990s.
But there were over a dozen-odd complaints during the evening. In the city, firecrackers were burst at Lansdowne, Chitpur, Hastings, Jadavpur, Ballygunge, Bansdroni and Garia.
“We couldn’t nab the offenders as they went quiet when we arrived,� police officials said.
Most of the complaints though, was from the outskirts of the city and its suburbs. While Howrah remained the worst offender, Chandernagore was close behind.
At Dasnagar, crackers were burst at will for several hours since afternoon. At HB Block in Salt Lake, Kasba and Kashipur, revellers engaged in guerrillatype tactics, bursting crackers in short bursts and slipping away before the police could act.
But even complainants agreed that it was much better than last year. The “victory� over firecrackers was, however, drowned by loudspeakers.
With pandals failing to put in place sound limiters (an electronic device that regulates loudspeakers to an optimum level), the speakers turned the melodious tunes of the shehnai into a loud drone.
“We were playing the loudspeakers softly. It’s only about a minute ago that a child raised the volume,� pleaded an official of Nabodaya Sangha at Beliaghata CIT Road when a roving WBPCB team caught them loud and clear.
Their sonometer showed 93 decibels, way above the 65 decibels limit. The truant child seemed to have clones at nearly every pandal. For the excuse was always the same.
“We never play the speakers loud. And we never play Hindi numbers. It’s only shehnai all evening,� said a member of Kankurgachi Boys’ Club, trying to explain that shehnai could never be loud.
“We’ll have to enforce the sound limit by speaking to the electricians that install the loudspeakers,� said a PCB official.