KARACHI: Amid firecrackers going off, the Hindu and Sikh communities celebrated the festival of Diwali on Sunday as temples and gurudwaras in the metropolis were decorated with lights and flowers.

Also known as the festival of lights, Diwali is celebrated in remembrance of the Hindu god Rama’s victorious return to his people after remaining in exile for 14 years. He had also come back after defeating the devil Rawana. So the happiness of the people was manifold. To this day, they light clay lamps around pretty and colourful rangoli designs, which they create at the entrance of their homes. Meanwhile, the young join in the celebrations by lighting sparklers, crackling fountains, comets and those noisy firecrackers of course. In fact, they help themselves to whatever fireworks they can lay their hands on.

As you enter the Shri Swami Narayan Mandir you feel your heart skip a beat or two with the going off of firecrackers. As you catch your breath again, there is crackling laughter from the children, who then run off to scare some other poor soul. Children will be children. They also bring much business to the ones selling fireworks there. One box of firecrackers with some 50 of them cost Rs30 to Rs60 while the sparklers with 12 to 18 in a box cost around Rs150 to Rs200 per box. All the fireworks were said to be made in China. The children had lots of pocket money collected over some time to buy the stuff.

In the big courtyard next to the main temple, there was Savita Devi busy rolling pieces of cotton wool between her palms to prepare wicks for the hundreds of small clay lamps spread out behind her to form the wording ‘Happy Diwali’ within a huge rangoli. “Everything is not about creating noise. We work in silence, too,” she smiled while going about her work.

Little Dakshit Shukrani, meanwhile, was taking the cotton wool wicks from her and placing them in the lamps followed by adding some oil for burning. Pritam

Premji and Govardhan, two teenagers, were busy lining the lamp designs and wordings with some hay, which they had shredded and dyed green and red. Someone thought that the red pieces of hay looked like shredded carrots, which made the kids laugh.

Outside their tiled floor home entrance, Laksha and big sister Jyoti had created a very sweet pink, green, purple and yellow rangoli lined with rose petals.

What would this festival be without sweets, so there was also a big stall selling sweetmeats.

Published in Dawn, November 13th, 2023