So what if crackers are banned and volumes have to be low this time around on Diwali. The people with a festive spirit are already in the mood big-time The young netizens are looking at the Internet for a good time on Diwali. But what fun is Diwali-on-the-Net? After all there is a limit to what the Net can do Put these questions to 16-year-old Raman, a student of DPS R K Puram and he is going to zap you. "You can burst crackers, send Diwali cards, and also chat in special Diwali chatrooms. And though my dad would not let me gamble, I am planning to play some online casino games to please Goddess Lakshmi," he said, sitting in front of his computer.
There are many like Raman who would go online after Lakshmi Puja and meet up with their family and friends.
"My son is in New York. There is no way he can do the puja there. But thanks to the Internet, we have sites that teach all the puja techniques. We have also send our son the Diwali sagan through the Net.''
''And on Diwali we plan to talk to him in a specially created chatroom," said R K Mehta, a retired Government servant, whose only son works in a software firm in New York.
The fun, according to most netizens, began a few weeks before Diwali.
Aparna Pathak, a student of Mass Communication, said "The first sign that the festival is round the corner is when one starts getting Diwali-related jokes on e-mail. These mails are followed by cartoons and e-cards being sent all over world to ensure that all interested parties are a part of the fun. The best part about the Net is that the whole world is a part of your celebration. I have got mails from Americans who did not know what Diwali was and had got e-mails. They wanted to know more about the festival." To add punch to the festive fever she is chatting these days under the assumed identity Pataka. The theme doing the rounds this time is the present situation in Afghanistan. Bin Laden has inspired enormous jokes in the backdrop of Diwali. One of these animations shows President Bush lighting a phuljhari and Bin Laden coming out of the flames and turning into phitkaris.