Celebrating Halloween As An Outsider

So Halloween is around the corner and almost everyone is excited, whether they are Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Atheist etc. Considering the fact that Halloween is a Celtic holiday or from Christian perspective an "All Saint's Day", one would wonder, why does everyone in the world celebrate Halloween?

The answer is simple, it is a celebration. It is something to be happy about, a reason to party, an excuse for children to hobble up more candy than they can imagine and the biggest reason yet, an excuse to get together.

Now I being Muslim, am neither religiously inclined to celebrate Halloween nor does the country, I live in (Pakistan) has any significant interest in celebrating Halloween. Yet however, I find myself, sitting amongst friends, planning to celebrate Halloween just for the fun of it. I mean we never have costume parties and Halloween is not popularly celebrated.

The only places that would be throwing a Halloween bash would be so highly priced that we would decide to stay indoors instead. The reality is, you will really get a chance to go to a Halloween party if you "Know The RIGHT People" and well apparently, I do not know anyone.

For anyone who will tell you, girls in Pakistan party all night long, is only talking about girls working in the media, models and people like that. In reality in Pakistan, and by Pakistan I mean Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi an average girl will stay out on her own latest till sunset. After that she would really prefer to be with family, spouse etc.

Coming back to the Halloween, let me tell you how I, an average Karachiite celebrated Halloween last year.

1. Treats

So besides stalking up a bunch of chocolates (I will tell you what happened to them later in the article), I decided to bake a cake, a chocolate cake (honestly, at the time I did not even remember it was Halloween, I was just in the mood to bake). So once my chocolate cake got baked and I took it out of the oven, I was immensely shocked because the cake was green in colour... Yes, GREEN! Okay so I am no gourmet cook and apparently I can not bake, so I had to explain to my family why the cake was green. I was pretty dumbstruck when it suddenly hit me, It is HALLOWEEN. I successfully passed off the GREEN cake as a Halloween treat!! Do not worry, no one got food poisoning, I think the cake turned green because of too many eggs or something. Anyway this event really put me in the mood for Halloween.

2. Costumes

Obviously I had none, so I decided to be creative and innovative. I already was wearing an apron from the baking, I drew a mustache with a marker, wore a hat and viola I was master chef. (Of course I did not realise that it was a permanent marker and I had a mustache for 2 DAYS! Thank God the next day was Sunday.)

3. Tricks

It is safe to say that my brother played a trick on me when he gave me a permanent marker for making a mustache because I was not giving him any chocolate.

4. Pumpkin Carving

Of course I did not have a pumpkin and I was not going to buy a ridiculously expensive vegetable that no one eats for just a night. (Pumpkin is a rare vegetable in Karachi. I have never seen it in a grocery shop and well it might be available at those pricey high end shops which are only a million miles away from my home.)

So pumpkin was out, now which was the closest vegetable in my home at that time that I could carve? Onion, tomato, chillies... Aaaha a potato!!

Now honestly I am too lazy and unskilled to carve a potato WITHOUT carving my fingers as well so I decided to microwave it (I love the microwave, if I am stuck on an island and can have only one appliance, I would choose the microwave!). I kept solid black peppers on the potato for its eyes, a clove for the nose, an onion slice for the mouth and toothpicks for the hair.

5. Halloween Cookies

Considering my baking skills, mother was a little pro active and bought the cookies from our club's bakery. She tried to preserve them for as long as possible because she thought they were too beautiful to be eaten, of course the second she was not around we decided to eat them and boy she was right, they might have been beautiful but they tasted AWFUL!

5. Trick-Or-Treat

Since Halloween is not celebrated as a festival in Karachi, if I were to show up at my neighbour's place with a marker mustache and an apron. They would either think I have lost my mind or would think I have switched careers and become a serial killer.

It is safe to say, I would not even think of stepping out of my house in a costume in the middle of the night.

Also since we had no people ringing our door bells for candy, we got to eat them all till we felt like throwing up.

6. Halloween Bash

My siblings and I switched off the lights of the room, lit a few candles and after about 3 ghost stories, suddenly the door opened and my dad said "Boo", it freaked us out so much we could not sleep the entire night! No one would dare switch off the lights again. :)

So this was how I celebrated Halloween at home with family in a city which has practically no Halloween culture, I wonder what will I do this year... Considering my mum has stopped me from ever baking again... Stay tuned. :)