KARACHI: It was like finding one’s way through a battlefield with mines laid out just about everywhere at the Shri Swami Narayan Mandir here on the occasion of the festival of Diwali on Sunday.

Naughty boys and girls lighting firecrackers just behind you made you jump and run for dear life in the opposite direction only to be confronted with another giggling group with more fireworks (read ammunition). The heart went ‘thud’ with every explosion that kept coming non-stop! There was just no escape. Of course, the clever ones found refuge in the nearest dhaba for a bite of potato cutlets, chickpea curry, tarkari and puri. But how long could they also stay there? And once out of there it was back into the danger zone.

“Don’t the sounds make you jump?” Someone asked the children with endless supplies of firecrackers, sparklers, sparkler fountains, smoke bombs, etc.

“I think I damaged both my ears with the very first firecracker that I lit. Now I can’t hear very well so I don’t jolt or jump,” said Pooja, a cute but dangerously armed little girl in a pretty yellow and orange frock.

“I think I’m immune to the sounds by now,” said Shankar, a lanky fellow looking around for his next victim. Whoever had their hands covering their ears and eyes tightly shut were inviting more trouble.

According to Hindu mythology, the festival associated with celebrations after Ram Chander got Sita freed from the clutches of Ravan is also celebrated by the Sikh community. The ground where the Shri Swami Narayan Mandir is located also houses a Gurdwara. “We Sikhs call the same festival Bandi Chhor Divas. Where the Hindus celebrate Sita’s freedom, we celebrate the release from prison in Gwalior of the sixth guru, Guru Hargobind Ji, and 52 other kings who were imprisoned with him,” said Sardar Ramesh Singh, patron-in-chief of the Pakistan Sikh Council, who was also there sporting a bright blue turban with two of his friends in equally striking red and aqua turbans.

And among the joyous crowd wandered a few men with red rose and marigold garlands. Mohammad Aslam, who owns a flower shop at Teen Hatti, was selling marigold garlands, which he claimed were best sellers. And Anwer Hussain, who has his shop at Numaish, was insisting that his rose garlands were more in demand. The debate then could only be settled when Mohammad Khalil, who did not own any shop and had only made garlands for the occasion, walked in with both types of garlands for sale. “The marigold ones are more popular because they don’t dry up quickly, they last longer.

Meanwhile, a banner behind a table with lit oil lamps reminded one of solidarity and brotherhood. It read: ‘The Hindu community is united in its grief over the recent tragedy in Quetta’.

Published in Dawn, October 31st, 2016