India, Nov. 8 -- There was a time when Diwali was all about bursting firecrackers for Sapna Parmar, 54, an advertising professional. Her parents spent lakhs on crackers when she was a child, which she would burst for hours. The ones that soared into the sky, illuminating the entire skyline, were her favourites. "I was a firecracker maniac. I loved the sound, the aura and the reflections they created. I didn't like the smaller firecrackers I loved only the big ones," she said. Her relationship with firecrackers, however, changed with the arrival of Kiki, her family's first pet puppy. Two years ago, with the pup still settling in, when she went downstairs to burst crackers in the building complex, the alarmed house help rushed to tell her that the pup was running about in the house in distress. "We couldn't understand what went wrong. Unsure, I took him to the vet, who asked if the dog had been exposed to any loud sounds. I told her that I was the only one bursting crackers. She explained that the noise had caused his reaction," Parmar recalled. She returned home and spent hours comforting the pet. "The distress led me to question the real meaning of the festival. I realised how the festival of lights had been reduced to that of firecrackers," she said. She decided a change of course that day, realising "what something I enjoyed so much could do to another living being". "I never went back to bursting crackers anymore," she said....