This happened when I was 11 years old, in the year 1985.
As a kid I always enjoyed the boghi festival as it has nothing to do with waiting hungrily for the food till the pooja gets over or neither did it involve assembling of items in the pooja room, that too in a very cautious manner as though god is a supervisor, watching us closely, checking whether we are placing everything in order and are we having good thoughts while doing so.
It seemed really a tough task to suddenly become a good person.
In the festival days, during the aarthi time I have so many wishes lined up, that i get confused as to in which order should I place them.
Should I be more specific in my words, you know just in case God doesn't understand what I am trying to ask him.
Sometimes I finalize to ask something but particularly on that day the aarthi time seems to be very short, to my utter disappointment, because after the aarthi time, I think that God vanishes and goes somewhere else, just like in the movies, and he no longer hears me, so I can't get my remaining wishes fulfilled.
Anyway getting back to the story, in boghi celebration there was no serious work involved, only playing with fire together with the elders.
Usually I can't wake up early but on boghi day somehow I am up early and ready to plunge into action like 'let's burn it down'.
During one such boghi day, early in the morning around 4:30 am as I was collecting my old clothes to give it to my dad, my mom came over, gave me a pair of scissors and an old saree and said, '"just make some cuts here and there and give to your father".
Now people, don't get confused, you see my dad had his own rules for boghi burning, anything to be burnt should have some minor damages at least, even if its 20 years old ,so we had to do some kind of tampering with the things to convince him .
I nodded my head and started the procedure but since I was very sleepy, I had cut the new saree that was kept beside me.
It was the one which my mum got just the day before, for the Pongal festival, the first thing I did was I ran, locked the door from the inside, and started to panic.
My mind was racing fast even though I was sitting at one place, I was in great shock, staring at the torn saree, nothing came up in my mind and I started to sweat profusely, finally I came to the decision, the saree has to go in the boghi fire, gosh, I had to think like the villains in the movies to come to that conclusion.
I bundled the saree together with my old clothes and silently crept outside ,my heart was pounding in jet speed, because if my father finds out I might be in great trouble.
When I went outside I saw that nobody was near the burning flame, a small crowd had indeed gathered near my neighbour's place, as I closely watched, i overheard the crowd and came to know that my neighbor, Mrs Raghu while throwing away some of her old brooms, accidentally slipped and pushed her husband, and eventually sent him into the burning flame, but thank god, nothing happened, he was safe.
Apparently that incident needs some further investigation to know the real truth.
But right now I had no time for that, I hurriedly paced forward, threw all that I had in my hand into the fire and retreated back as quickly as possible.
And as I stood there watching the saree go up in flames I felt a bit guilty, as it was a mistake on my part but after sometime I convinced myself, the reason being, you know, my mom gets 5 to 6 new sarees every month since she is a working woman.
I threw the guilt in the flame and started enjoying the boghi together with my friends, beating the drums, singing some movie songs and laughing a lot.
Some youngsters from the neighborhood started to dance in a funny way around the fire which made me forget my mischievous deed.
