Few days back Kollam in Kerala witnessed a tragedy due to fireworks that killed more than hundred people and wounded many . Last month a fire-walking mishap killed one person and wounded many in Tumkur. Every year people die due to stampedes in temples in some part of our country . And I am sure there are more which never make it to the mainstream news . And I am also pretty confident that many more such tragedies are going to happen in the future. Governments are thinking to ban fire walking, firework shows in fairs.
Let’s take a look at what is going on .
Huskur fair used to draw around 10,000 people but today it is visited by 50,000 people in a day. Twenty years before 1 lakh people used to visit Yellamma fair but now it has gone to 4 lakh to 5 lakh people in a day! So is Mylara fair, Chikkellur fair. This year Sirisi fair saw biggest crowd that ever seen !
An old shepherd sitting near Devanahalli says Bengaluru Karaga was never that crowded when he used to visit. Now he no more visits any Bengaluru fairs due to crowd. So it is evident that every year our fairs are getting more people.
Today we have technology which is bringing dangerous things such as sparkling lights, gas cylinders, vehicles, electronics, electrical stuff. There is increased usage of fire, chemicals, fuels, gases, plastics and many more. And on top of it we have cheap materials disregarding all the safety issues. More than that now we have more antisocial elements who indulge in theft, clashes, communal disharmony , terrorism! That’s the prime reason we see more accidents , stampedes , pollution nowadays .
Fairs are beautiful events. Before technology influenced it, it was the confluence of religion, friendship, harmony and relationships. The commercial aspect in it was just incidental. As a result nature was not harmed much in the process. Upon a closer look many can see the motive behind many of these practices/fairs are conservation of nature itself though few practices were dumb beliefs and inhuman.
So where we are heading ?
This is how it is going to be in future. There will be more accidents, more stampedes , more chaos, more government bans, more police, more restrictions , more chemicals, more shops, more hotels, more electronics, more news and all those unique practices which are unique to those places will loose their importance. All the fairs will look same and all the fairs will become a hotspot for selling cheap, unsafe stuff in the name of god. It may not come as a surprise then, if in another 50 years these fairs are banned completely due to safety issues!
