When we were young crackers were a luxury & was rationed like many things those days, like cement, bajaj chetak's etc. My fathers youngest brother Gopanna used to do the collection from my dad & eldest brother Gundanna aka Doddappa to buy crackers. He was an over organised man for his age. He used to buy exact number of crackers to the last bijilee & sparkler. We were 14 kids in the joint family representing excietement equal to 10 timess what my daughters have now. It was division of cracker time on the eve of Balipadyami, the first day of deepavali. We boys got all the dhaam dhoom crackers & the girls got the sparklers, flowerpots etc. We had to split crackers later on for Bali Padyami, Narakachaturdashi & a small little lot for tulasi puja which falls after a month after Deepavali. I was always the first one to run out of crackers & then eye on the crackers of other cousin brothers, sometimes stealing them too. On the first day me & favorite cousi...