Delhi celebrates the festival of lights with devotional ceremonies, new clothes, sweets and firecrackers.
Their houses lit up in festive spirit, people in the national capital celebrated Diwali today with fervour and gaiety, exchanging sweets, bursting crackers and sharing the joy with near and dear ones.
Houses and shops were at their decorative best, with lights all around the walls, flowers donning the insides and colourful rangolis welcoming people at the entrances.
People had been flooding markets throughout this week in frenized shopping and early on in the day too, many people rushed to their nearby shops to make sure they have enough sweets and crackers for the day.
The day began with many people in new clothes performing puja at home while others visiting temples.
Chants of prayers and wafts of fragrance from incense sticks permeated the environment early in the day, following which people stepped out of their houses to exchange greetings with neighbours, friends and relatives.
Many also took to the Facebook to wish a 'Happy Diwali' to their friends and some also used the social networking site to exhort their friends to follow safety norms while bursting crackers.
The festival marks the joy of Ayodhya when Lord Rama returned to his Kingdom after defeating Ravana and lighting 'diyas' is how the subjects welcomed their beloved king.
As evening descended, candles and oil lamps dotted around the houses as revellers took to open spaces to burst crackers.
While for many, the festival is all about celebrating, for some it is also about sharing of love and compassion.
Nandita, who celebrates Diwali with friends, made it sure she took out an hour to go to a school run by a charitable trust and distribute some books and stationary to underprivileged children.
"It is great if some children would feel happy by the effort," she said. Police and fire brigade made extensive arrangements to ensure an "incident-free" Diwali. While police strengthened its presence across the city, especially in markets, fire fighters too kept fire tenders ready to respond at any distress call.
"Between 12 pm and 6 pm, we have already received 63 calls but all of them were minor incidents", a fire official said. While children and other cracker lovers had a good time, dogs and cats were a petrified lot on Diwali with loud noise making it a harrowing time for them.
"My dogs are anyways a soft lot. They don't take even loud shouts well. But ever since the cracker season started, they cower under the bed, table or sofa every evening," said Ridhi, a resident of Safdarjung enclave.
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