All Hindus celebrate Diwali also known as Deepavali on a grand scale. The word Deepavali is a combination of 2 Sanskrit words Deepa – light and avali – a row in short “lights in a row”. No where in the words can one find a mention of sound. I don’t know when it started but some guys associated the festival with noise and there started the trouble. I am not against crackers but the present version of crackers and the amount of noise they produce does not make any sense to me. Its like more noise means you are celebrating in a better way. I fail to understand what kind of kiddish thinking is this. In fact the time i am writing this in background there goes a series of deafening sound bombs. Surprisingly many educated people have this type of thinking and this makes the situation even worse. I hope people do change their thinking about this and celebrate Diwali only as a festival of lights.
PS. Found one light hearted take on this topic at rediff.com
http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2007/nov/09diwali.htm