A quieter Raya this year?

I have a confession to make. 
Some years ago, I brought home RM600 worth of sparklers and fireworks. My mother didn’t ask me where I got them from and I didn’t tell her. She repeatedly said I was “burning money” for buying and lighting up the fireworks. That money could have put to good use elsewhere. 
That was the year we beat the other houses in the area in an unofficial fireworks competition. It started close to midnight on the eve of Syawal and was based on who could shoot the highest or the loudest. We kept our “secret weapon” for last. We let our neighbours have all the fun — they had teased and taunted us with their fireworks. 
At the stroke of midnight, our fireworks lit the skies. We gave our neighbours, and a passing patrol car, some two minutes of spectacular fireworks display. No, we didn’t get into trouble with the authorities. They didn’t even alight from their car. They probably saw that the fireworks were lit under adult supervision. We didn’t think they were going to drag all of us to the police station that night. It was already past midnight; in fact, it was Syawal morning. 
A year before that, I brought home firecrackers, the ones the Chinese would burn at the stroke of midnight on Chinese New Year. I remember Mak scolding us twice; the first was because we lit it close to midnight and that the racket disturbed our neighbours and then the morning after when she saw the front lawn blanketed by a sea of red paper. We had to clean the lawn before she allowed us to sit at the dining table for breakfast on the first day of Raya. 
But, I must tell you that we were good kids. We still have our fingers intact. There was little or no MacGyver in us. We never attempted to make our own bamboo or pipe cannons. In fact, we had never seen one in our lives. We would stick to the original thing, with no intentions of modifying it. 
Whenever Mak is on her reminiscing mode, she would regale my niece and nephew with stories of her playing with “meriam buloh” during her growing up years in Batu Pahat. Yes, they made their own cannons and bombs. She would describe in detail the hissing sound when calcium carbide is added to water and the sound it made when it was lit. “Boleh dengar kampong sebelah. Tak ada pulak yang putus jari atau mati (even the neighbouring village can hear it. And, no one lost their fingers or their lives),” she would say. 
I asked around, but no one really knows when fireworks became a tradition in Malay households. I remember playing with sparklers when I was small. And, Mak never failed to use the mishap that left a scar on my body while playing with sparklers as an example of how dangerous it was to play with them. 
I read that fireworks were invented during the Tang Dynasty in 7th century China and were used in many festivities. The Chinese originally believed that the fireworks could expel evil spirits and bring about luck and happiness. 
It eventually spread to other cultures and societies. But, it is during Ramadan and Hari Raya — not Chinese New Year where fireworks are part of the tradition — that we read about incidents relating to fireworks. 
So, Mak was relieved when she read in the newspapers last week of Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar’s warning to parents who buy or allow their children to play with firecrackers. 
She no longer has to worry about the grandchildren playing with fireworks. 
Khalid had said there is “a strong, solid law” and that police “will enforce it to the fullest”. Under Section 8 of the Explosives Act 1957, anyone convicted can be imprisoned for up to seven years, fined RM10,000 or both. The law also empowers the police “to enter or board and search any house, premises or other buildings or place, or any vehicle, vessel or aircraft specified in the warrant and to search all persons found therein and thereon”. 
Even parents who were found buying their children these firecrackers would be arrested, Khalid said. The police authorised only the POP-POP firecrackers and a specific type of sparklers for the Malaysian market. 
Many other countries, such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Switzerland, France and Chile, have enforced fireworks laws. In fact, fireworks are illegal in Ireland and Chile, and only certain types can be sold to the public in Australia. For the other countries, for the most part, citizens need to be 18 to buy fireworks. In some countries, the fireworks are for sale only on certain days. 
Even China has banned fireworks in some of its cities, not for safety reason like but more due to the dire smog problem they are facing there. 
We will have to wait and see if this Raya will be a little quieter or less jubilant. Despite Khalid’s warning, I could still hear the deafening Thunderclaps outside the balcony of my brother’s apartment in Putrajaya over the weekend.