Of Diwali celebrations, and gunshots

After much denial, I have accepted that I am a digital addict. I never switch off these days or go offline. I am always online. I often panic when my phone battery dies because God forbid!

I miss a notification and how on earth will I figure out what is happening around me. On this particular day, I stepped outdoors to talk to the night watchman who considers me the coolest dude on the block. I suspect it is because I don’t call him askari or soldier and took the trouble to memorise his name.

Ordinary stuff

I don’t hoot incessantly at the gate even when he falls asleep before nine. I also don’t act like I am doing him a favour by asking him to wash my car and I don’t play him with damn, middle class type questions seeking to find out what the ‘watus’ think about the political leadership.

We talk about ordinary stuff, like the planting season and delayed rains. Damn kids who waste school fees and envious relatives who are trying to bewitch us back in the village.

As we were chatting away, we suddenly heard loud explosions and I immediately thought of Al-Shabaab. The gunshot sounds were emanating from a distance of less than a kilometre.

Nowadays, even a tyre burst will get a Nairobian ducking unconsciously. I asked the watchman for his opinion and he said matter-of-factly, “Pengine ni majambazi”. It kept going for the next fifteen minutes and I did what every sensible Nairobian does. I logged onto my twitter timeline hoping someone had already tweeted their concern.

Ethnic society

And sure enough, I stumbled on a couple of concerned tweets. “Hey #KOT. What is going on, I can hear gunshots?” Turns out it was just the Diwali celebrations, which I always mentally pegged as happening in November. We forget that in a multi-ethnic society such as ours, not everyone is stuck on the Gregorian calendar cycle.

I remember as a kid we would save money to buy patakas and we used soda bottles to light up rockets. How fast things change. Try celebrating Diwali in the Eastleigh neighbourhood and the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit will throw you into Kasarani staduim faster than you can say “Me Hindi!”

I used to love Diwali and the sparkling lights in the dark of the night sky. Now not so much, because I clearly suffer from post-traumatic-stress-grenade-disorder and find it difficult to stay calm around loud explosions within earshot.