Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Fire-cracker and cow dung explosion



I wanted to attach an image of cow dung, but I could not bring myself to do that, coz I never saw cow dung at such a close range as the picture was (here is the link) don't say that I didn't warn.

Long time ago I went to my village were I am allowed to be the animal I am, no reigns, no need to be a snob, a knob or a nob. Normally among kids in village its more about how fast you can run, climb the tree or tie a bell around a bull's neck.


This is the story about my vacation. My cousins and I were playing, and because we were a lot into modifying things, we decided to do something radical.

It was Diwali so we decided to make our own mega explosive, really noisy fire cracker.

We took couple of these shown in the picture, these are Chinese, the Indian versions have better wick.

But these firecrackers have a problem, they go off very quickly and in a way you can blow your hand off if not careful.


So we decided to find a way to make is safe but loud. We found another version of fire cracker which is pretty loud and kind of scary but it has a slow burning wick, that gives us enough time to run. Look at the picture on the left.

Now what we did was we super glued couple of those above with the one on the side and kind of connected the short wicks to the bottom of the slow burning wick.


So the bomb was ready, but it looked kind of dangerous, I have no idea what flipped inside my brain but I decided to plant the bomb in the largest cow dung I could find, which was conveniently near a store that used to rip us off.

We needed something to light it up, but we were not so sure about going inside the house for asking. Coz we have a notorious reputation. If any of my associates including me ask for something that has to do with fire, we will be punished.

So one of my not-so-smart cousin, who apparently was shaking with fear brought a colored sparkles instead of incense stick (incense stick allows to light up the wick with precision), he went near the bomb and tried to lit it, but because of its immense heat, the sparkle burnt the wick faster than it should.

AND BADA BOOM it went, massive ammount of cow-dung flying every where. I was smarter so I stood behind a pillar, but my cousins were not spared.

The one who lit the bomb was completely covered in cow-dung, his face was black from the soot and he was belowing smoke out of his nostrils. The other cousin managed to start running, so he was half covered with dung. I was already behind a wall, I was safe.

I saw the impact of the blast next day in the morning, the shop's shutter and it's hoarding was covered in cow dung. Not a single thing in the vicinity was spared. two cars and a bike....completely covered in cow dung.

It took few days for my cousin to recover from that blast!! and the smell of the dung didn't leave him for days.

My cousin went " YEAH!! lets do it again" and after few days we modified a rocket, which did not take off, and the whole thing blew on ground, burnt my uncle's favorite rose bush, and we got thrashed and grounded.

The cow-dung smell was bad, but the revenge I took was sweet.

I don't lit fire-cracker's any more, I think its just not good for the environment and mostly because they are made by child laborers.

13 comments:

shanaz | My Reverie said...

The part where you hid behind the pillar quietly was very sly of you, but then again, you were on a mission of a sweet-revenge. Cunning.

So, the cousin who used the colored sparkles instead of the incense stick was your primary target eh? HA HA HA HA. That was brilliantly executed! Great planning, marvelous tactic!

But as for me, I stay away from self-made fire-crackers or the ones sold anywhere, because I have Extremely-Noise-Sensitive-Ear-Disorder.

:D

Shriti said...

hahaha! well once me and my friends had tried this..
It was so much :D

Sakshi said...

I have never liked bombs.. at all. (Yeah I am a typical OMG OMG girl)
But cowdung bomb... awwwww... YUCK!!!!

Nikki Neurotic said...

Fire crackers scare me, but that's funny. I imagine the sulfur in the cow dung gave it even more oomph!

Mr.Poo said...

Why like boys blowing up things with firecrackers? I remember once we did blow up some dog doo, and my friend got dog doo all over in the face. That was so disgusting.

Suman said...

This remind me of my child hood days in my village...I was taken 20 years back..

Maya said...

hey tht was cool, i wud try it out sometime, the ghu bomb

Sorcerer said...

Brilliance..sheer unaltered..unadulterated brilliance

susie said...

U r a genius sanju, absolute genius... :)

Anonymous said...

I saw that cowdung picture bcoz u warned...Yuck..I just had my dinner and ...yuck

Hehe fun knowing wat happened to ur cousins :P
Did u really stand behind the pillar or ?? ;~P

санжог said...

@Shanaz
they won't listen to me! and my cousin was a wuss, so we decided for him to blow it up his way!! to built courage.

I too don't like loud sounds, but if I did it, i am not missing that!!

@chocolate lover

It's fun isn't it!!

@sakshi
That blast was not ordinary, it was huge coz all the charges went up at the same time, like planned only too quickly!!
I blew a fire cracker near me once!! so I was cautious. I don't like the

@ silver neurotic

It was awesome!! oh yeah the smell was actually not that bad, it smelled like some one lit up wet twigs. But the smell of sulfur overpowered everything. It was quite disorientating.

@Mr. poo

I will sound weird, but in comparison, the cow dung would smell earthy, i cannot imagine how dog doo doo would blow up, it would probable become a single projectile looking for a target instead of blowing inoto pieces, freaking awesome man.

@Suman

Yeah it does, the good old days!

@uncommonsense

i think it would be illegal these days!! Now people blow up things for entirely different reasons!!

@saucer

Man, I am sure you too did awesome shit during child hood too. Hoping to see some on your blog.

@susie

Not as much as you people are!!

@Yemiledu

Well to tell you the truth I too was not spared, but the regions that were covered by the pillar.

@all

I would love to read about your child hood adventures!!

I had an awesome child hood, because my cousin with whom I usually hang out is out-of -this-world-crazy-ass-awesome. His name is RAJA quite fitting too!!

Renu said...

Your last line echoes my sentiments.

Anonymous said...

@ sanjog,

nice read.

treat cowdung as holy.

cheers !