The story
Mela Chiraghan in Lahore
Mela Chiraghan, the Festival of Lights, is a three-day urs marking the death anniversary of 16th-century Sufi poet-saint Shah Hussain, held at his shrine in Baghbanpura beside Lahore's Shalimar Gardens. Devotees light oil lamps and candles that feed a growing communal bonfire, accompanied by dhol drumming and Sufi devotional music.
On the outskirts of Lahore, beside the Mughal-era Shalimar Gardens, stands the shrine of Shah Hussain, a 16th-century Punjabi poet and Sufi mystic whose verses, still sung and recited across Punjab today, wove spiritual devotion together with an unorthodox, often provocative rejection of religious rigidity.