THEY turned out in their thousands on Monday night to the closing of the Divali Nagar at Chaguanas on the highway.

Nothing, not the threat of bandits or kidnappers could stop them.

East Indians ladies dressed in their finest, and the men, too, were present enjoying themselves, happy, smiling, almost without a care in the world.

Of course, they cared.

But they talked with their feet.

“Bandit or no bandit, we going to the closing of Divali Nagar,” one woman who gave her name as Sharon said she told her husband.

“We fed-up of letting these lazy, good-for-nothing, wicked fellows determine our lives.”

Sharon, her husband, Rishi, their two children, their nephews and nieces and other members of their extended family packed into three vehicles and were part of the massive traffic jam leading to the Nagar.

The earlier fear, one first expressed four, five years ago, that the crime situation would stop them from attending was put to rest almost from the beginning of this year’s celebrations

At first the crowd looked smaller, then it grew.

It exploded like a sea of rough waves on Monday night..

Young, old, pretty, man, woman, children, rich and poor they were present.

Their presence was a powerful statement to the bandits and kidnappers: You not stopping us tonight.

When Divali first started, the crowd was massive.

Then somewhere alone the line, it seemed to have lessened.

Indeed, for the past four to five years, some people had expressed the view that they were seeing less and less people at the Nagar celebrations.

The first culprit blamed for the drop in attendance was crime: the car thieves, the bandits.

They had to blame it on something.

Anything except the fact that the organisers, the Nagar itself may have been the culprit.

Something about the “show” was not happening.

That was before kidnapping became the craze.

Then kidnapping came into being, so last year etc. they blamed it on kidnapping.

Indians were the target of kidnapping, just as they are the target on crime, so they are staying away from the Davali Nagar, it was stated by some.

“Divali Nagar had become stale,” one woman openly stated, as she gave another reason for the drop in attendance.

“So we stopped coming.

“Then our neighbours told us it had picked back up, so we started attending again.”

TnT Mirror was also reminded that at one point, the Maha Sabha, the majority Hindu representative body, was in conflict with the Divali Nagar main organisers, the National Council of Indian Culture (NCIC).

Well, the murders, kidnapping and other crimes are higher this year than they have ever been, yet Divali Nagar in terms of attendance was a massive success this year.

Is it that people suddenly gained confidence that the government and the police were doing a good job and they were in safe hands?

Or is it that the people got fed-up of being imprisoned in their own homes, decided enough was enough and took the decision to defy the criminals en masse?

You be the judge.