Day 139: Dupatta Gali

OYLPA Day 139: Dupatta Gali, originally uploaded by klodhie.

(Click here to see each of these photos on flickr)

Dupatta Gali in Lahore is always an exciting place to go, but even more so the day before "Eid-e-Milad un Nabi" (celebration of Prophet Muhammad's birth): colorful decorations hang everywhere and cover the walls of these narrow market streets. People squeeze by and bargain loudly with vendors for bangles and sparkling colored earrings, sequined shalwar kameez in the old fashion, and decorated trays for Mehndi celebrations. Each turn of a corner in this covered bazaar leads to new treasures, and as you venture deeper and deeper you'll come upon skilled artists busy at their sewing machines and intricate bead work. A stroll through Dupatta Gali is always, for me, one of the highlights of coming to Pakistan.

Tomorrow (Wed.) we stay indoors and away from busy, touristy places because it is Eid-e-Milad un Nabi and therefore a day off, which unfortunately means that the chances of a bomb blast in such locations is extremely high. People here simply plan their lives around this knowledge, and many, if not most, seem to have accepted the frequency of terrorist bombings as a fact of life, although they also live in absolute disgust of the spread of such extremist ideologies and the use of violence. There was a bit of time today in the evening that I actually thought there may have been a bombing, but it turned out that it was just the thunder. I have never in my entire life heard thunder that loud, I cannot even describe it other than to tell you that I was curled up in a ball with my heart racing like mad, and that it did indeed sound like a bomb blast for quite some time.

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