Celebrating the Fourth of July in Jaipur, India

Probably the most memorable Fourth of July my family has ever celebrated happened in an unexpected place, Jaipur, India.

My husband, two teenaged children and I lived in Jaipur for about six months as we explored various business opportunities in India. We specifically wanted to look into the possibility of starting a business selling Indian handicrafts in the U.S.

Although we were greatly enmeshed in Indian culture and life, holidays always left us feeling a bit nostalgic and homesick, so we did our best to celebrate American holidays while in India.

Once such holiday was the Fourth of July. Certain things such as apple pie was out, but knowing that watermelon was often consumed on the Fourth of July in the U.S., our wonderful cook, Chandu, prepared a special treat for us '" watermelon juice. We also picked up some Indian tandoori chicken from a nearby restaurant and some other special foods, though while different from what we'd eat in the U.S., were still good.

Lucky for us, India has fireworks. Lots and lots of fireworks. The fireworks in India are different from what you can buy in the U.S. in that from what I can tell, they are not in anyway regulated, so tend to be much more powerful than what we can buy in America.

We lived on the top floor of an apartment building, and had the entire flat, concrete roof, which was surrounded by a wall, all to ourselves. It was about 3,000 square feet large, so there was plenty of room for us to throw a big Fourth of July celebration for all of the Americans living in town, plus some close Indian friends.

We ate our delicious dinner and then all gathered around for the main event '" fireworks! We brought out boxes and boxes of fireworks that were sure to thrill all of our guests, and started lighting them. We were all having a great time, until we were all "thrilled" beyond what we anticipated.

We had saved an especially large firework for last, and had our faithful servant light it for us. We all gathered in a circle around it, in anticipation of what was sure to be a spectacular show of spinning fire.

It was spectacular, all right! Our servant had accidentally place it on the cement floor upside down before lighting it. The wrong position, coupled with the strong force of this particular firework caused the firework to explode with a loud bang, before it shot toward the crowd. All of our guests went running and screaming, trying to get away from it.

The entire thing was loud enough that all the other residents of the building ran outside, screaming, sure that a bomb had gone off. The building security guard did his best to assure everyone that it was just "the Americans celebrating a festival."

The next morning, when it was light, we walked onto the roof where we found a huge black mark, which is no doubt where the "bomb" went off. We quickly scrubbed the black mark off before our landlords came to visit us.

Although we've had many memorable Fourth of July celebrations before and since then, our family still fondly remembers the time we celebrated the Fourth of July in Jaipur, India in a way that everyone in the neighborhood still talks about.