Badaun (Utar Pradesh), Oct 17 (IANS) For residents of two villages in this district, Diwali festivities are not only about fireworks, lighting lamps and distributing sweets. They celebrate the festival also by throwing stones at one another.
It’s called Pattharmar Diwali, which has become a tradition for the residents of Faizganj and Behta villages in Uttar Pradesh’s Badaun district, 280 km from state capital Lucknow.

“For us Pattharmar Diwali is like a game that is full of action. We aim at our rivals from the other village and throw stones at them,” Shricharan Prakash, 61, a resident of Behta, told IANS.

According to locals, Pattharmar Diwali starts early morning the day before Diwali and ends the next afternoon.

“During this period we observe a break at night. Residents from both villages, primarily men, turn up in huge numbers in the fields that separate the two villages to celebrate Pattharmar Diwali,” Mishrikh Chaurasia, 31, a farmer of Behta village said.

“We remain armed with wooden sticks that come quite handy to ward off the rivals who sometimes come very close to throw stones,” he added.

Pattharmar Diwali is being observed in the two villages for 110 years, residents say. According to them, it started with a “fight for survival” between their ancestors.

“It is believed that to sort out the issue, ancestors of both the villages agreed to have a fight with stones. It was decided the winning side would be allowed to settle in large areas. However, the fight remained inconclusive and gradually became a tradition,” said Jagat Mohan, a former head of Faizganj village council.

“Villagers also get injured while participating in Pattharmar Diwali, but they never approach police as they treat it as a tradition. Once Pattharmar Diwali gets over, residents of both villages exchange pleasantries and visit one another to share sweets,” he added.

Officials at the Faizganj-Behta police station, which caters to both villages, also treat Pattharmar Diwali as a tradition and do not register any case against the villagers if any one gets injured while participating in the unique custom.

“I was quite surprised when I witnessed Pattharmar Diwali for the first time. It appears that to carry out the tradition smoothly, the residents of two villagers have mutually agreed that they would not register any complaint against their rival if anyone gets hurt,” Ashish Kumar, in charge of the police station, told IANS.