Hanif Qureshi, an auto-rickshaw driver in Nagpur, will not be keeping his vehicle on the road after 4 pm on Diwali day, and it has nothing to do with a stray fire cracker hitting him square on the torso causing several burns and bruises.
“It’s because our entire family celebrates Diwali, and we have to worship our vehicles for good luck,” he informs. Interestingly, Qureshi here is probably not the only non-Hindu in Nagpur who follows this tradition at his home and with his family. If we consider him as a representative of all those who do, we get to see an entirely different facet of this festival, which tends to break all barriers of caste, creed or religion.
Qureshi, who is about to reach his forties, says he has seen the festival celebrated in his family from as early as he can remember! “We had five autorickshaws in our family, but now we have four. Nevertheless, my father has issued strict orders that all four of us, his sons, are to bring these vehicles home by 4 pm tomorrow. They will then be cleaned, anointed and worshipped, because it is the day you worship wealth and that which generates wealth,” he explains.
That is not all! “We are also supposed to spend the rest of the day with the family, and set off crackers with the children! You have to become a child with these little ones, because the children do not understand the festival, but derive a lot of clean and unadulterated pleasure by lighting a cracker or two,” he says.