With time running out and panic beginning to set in I ordered my cousin and sisters to leave the hall early and lock themselves into my car. My two friends and I started psyching ourselves up, telling each other to be brave and vicious no matter how many people were waiting for us outside.

As the final dance finished and people began to filter out of the hall, I saw the gang standing guard at the exit door, and the stocky guy who had caused the trouble earlier was pointing at me. Not wanting to show any sign of fear, I walked up to him and reluctantly said,

"Come on then, let's do this."

"Don't worry you little shit - just wait for all the old aunties and uncles to leave and then I am going to kill you," he hissed back while his friends smiled.

"You can try," I retorted.

All of a sudden I felt saliva on my forehead - he had spat on me!

Loosing his temper and sensing the chance for a quick victory my friend ran up and punched one of the men back against the wall where he was seated. I rushed towards my bald "friend" with my dandia in the air but couldn't reach him before a security guard tackled me against a wall.

Shocked and dazed the three men ran towards the industrial estate behind the centre where my car was parked. Our desperate efforts to finish them off were futile as every security guard seemed determined to stop us chasing them.

After ten minutes or so the guards released us and told us to go home. The site was almost empty and we felt quite proud of having chased the men off. As my friend turned to thank Amba Ma's Murti for protecting us my phone started to ring. On the other side my youngest sister tearfully cried:

"Those men have just parked their car next to us. There are five of them. They took some metal poles out from their booth and they are running towards where you are!"

As I looked up I saw a huge turbaned man running towards us with what looked like the thick end of a snooker cue. I guess that is who they had called when they were on the phone earlier. With him the original three men in their twenties and another that looked in his thirties came charging at us. The security guards struggled to form a human wall between us and them. One grabbed my shirt and screamed:

"Where is your ****ing car?" I pointed in the direction of the gang that was thirsty for our blood.

"Come with me," he grunted as he dragged us past the wall of guards that was trying to keep us apart. We turned the corner into the industrial estate, our heads hung in shame at having had to walk away, to see 50 or so people, mostly the festival organizers, packing their cars getting ready to leave for the night.

I turned to look at my friend who was lagging behind. Unknown to him, three men were running towards him brandishing metal poles.

"Turn around!" I yelled.

But as his head turned to look behind, two of them beat him to the ground. As I ran to help him the bald man that had caused all the trouble ran at me. We started fighting with sticks as shocked families watched in horror. Another man came to help him while the turbaned man ran towards my other friend and started hitting him with a wooden cue.

I was struggling to fence with my dandia against two people. With my back to the wall I raised my left hand to protect my head. Looking straight ahead at the two men in front of me I didn't see a third man hurling a dandia towards the side of my head. Smack. It hit me clean on the hand that was guarding my face. I turned to see who did it and went for him out of sheer anger at the pain. He turned and ran but my friend staggered off the floor and stabbed him through the cheek with a pen. As he fell in pain my friend, blood pouring from his own scalp, pulled the man's head back and started smashing him with his own dandia.

Meanwhile the other two men ran towards me. One young bystander turned to the security guards and other young Hindu men that were around and cried:

"Why is nobody helping them?"

Enraged, the head security guard grabbed him from the throat and threw him into a hedge. Before the young boy could get out, the stocky bald man that was swinging for me turned and started hitting him in the face with a stick. I turned to see my sisters banging on the car window and tears streaming down their faces.

Before I knew it the bald man was running towards me waving his stick in the air. He tried to bring it down on the right side of my head but I was able to move to my left in time. The force of this took his whole body into the truck that was parked behind me. He turned and drove his shoulder into my back. Seeing his meaty head against my hip I squeezed it tight with my right arm and punched the top of his skull hard and fast with my left fist. Blood soon started to pour out, but I wouldn't stop. I was possessed. Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone else running towards me. Without fully looking I released the bald man's head with my right arm and cracked my dandia into the new man's left eye. It was a security guard! As he dropped in pain, the bald man got up and lifted me into what felt like an over zealous hymenic maneuver. The turbaned man, who later turned out to be the original trouble maker's uncle, ran up and started hitting me. Managing to get a hand free from the bear hug from behind I pulled his blood stained shirt towards me and head butted him in the nose.

I hadn't noticed the blue lights flashing a few meters away and within seconds we were all on the floor being handcuffed and restrained. As I was bundled into a squad car I pleaded with some of the event organizers and community elders to drop my little sisters home in my car. I later found out that they had refused at first and when one eventually did take the responsibility he told my sister that, "We welcome everyone into our garba and our mandir. It doesn't matter how they behaved, as long as they paid money they have a right to be there. Your brother had no right to tell them what to do."

I was locked up for 18 hours in a jail cell opposite three of the trouble makers that had also been arrested. Thanks to god I had no injuries beside a bruised hand. One of my friends had to have five surgical staples inserted into his head to repair his wound, while two members of the other gang, including the one that had caused the trouble, were admitted with stab wounds and skull fractures. Several police bail and court appearances followed. None of those who witnessed what happened supported me.

Disgusted with the way the Hindus, including the security guards, gathered there had watched on with indifference I didn't return to the Navratri event at that location for several years. Incidentally when I did pay a visit there last year I bumped into the same bald man that had caused all the problems. This time I found him prostrating himself in front of the murti of Shakti mata. I asked him what made him change his attitude. Completely sober he turned to me, shook my hand, and said:

"That day I came to this holy place drunk and Amba mata made me pay by putting me in hospital. Today I come to pray to her to say thanks."