t is hard for somebody familiar with the traffic jams in Karachi to imagine a scenario where people are stuck in traffic for hours without showing a willingness to engage in anarchic violence. But such things do happen. A few weeks ago, on a Sunday, my husband and I were coming home from a faraway place in Istanbul. Google Maps showed us that the journey would take almost two hours and require boarding three buses.

While we were trying to figure out which bus to take from which stop (despite the technological advancements, navigating routes can be a daunting task in Istanbul for newcomers), I noticed quite a few people on the streets wearing shirts of some football team. They looked pumped up; many were waving flags.

We were so far from the city centre and so caught up in finding the right bus that I didn’t pay much attention to them, thinking that they were probably fans of a local football club whose team had won some match.

But when our bus started moving towards the city centre and I was relaxed enough to pay attention to what was going on around us — people waving flags from their cars, team anthems playing loudly on speakers with everyone singing along, kids burning flares from car windows and the traffic barely moving — I realised that those were the fans of Galatasaray, one of the biggest football clubs in Turkiye.

A disclaimer is necessary: I hardly know anything about football. All my knowledge of the game comes from seeing my brothers and cousins discuss (enthusiastically and animatedly) which team did what. I do know some of the famous players, of course, but I’ll go mute if you ask me about their teams or what their role is on the field. So, how did I know about Galatasaray or that it was a big team here?

On one occasion before I came to Turkiye I was once having a post-dinner chit-chat with my family. One of my brothers inquired where we were going to live in Istanbul. When I said Beşiktaş, all present said simultaneously: Ohh, Beşiktaş. I knew instantly that there was a football connection; and I was right. They then tried to educate me about the Turkish football scene and who the top three teams in the country were. One of them said that even though I didn’t have any interest in the game, I would definitely experience the Turkish football furore at some point during my stay.

I did.

Coming back to the Galatasaray fans I saw celebrating their team’s victory on the streets: while in the stationary bus, I did a quick Google search and learnt that Galatasaray hadn’t won just any match; they’d won the Turkish Süper Lig. That’s why the fans were out on the streets in full force. And they weren’t just out; they were travelling from different parts of Istanbul all the way to the city centre — Taksim Square, in this case — in the form of a rally.

There were cars, big and small, bikes, trucks and whatnot. Young people wearing Galatasaray shirts could be seen hanging out of car windows, waving the team’s flags, chanting slogans and singing songs. Every once in a while, a group of people would break into a dance to the beat of team anthems being blasted from car speakers.

It didn’t seem to matter to these people who was standing next to them—man or woman, rich or poor, young or old. The only thing that seemed to matter was that all of them were rooting for one team.

People with an entrepreneurial mindset stood between cars, selling flags and other paraphernalia to the joyous crowd. One particularly innovative seller had a suitcase full of flares (the suitcase was lying open in the middle of the road) and was going around selling his wares. A young boy was beating a huge drum slung around his neck; people would occasionally give him money. All this was happening on the road where the traffic barely moved.

Now comes the part that baffled me: despite the fact that people were stuck in traffic for hours (we were on the road for four hours), nobody seemed angry or close to blowing up the city because there was a traffic jam. Some of the people in the buses did disembark and started walking.

Those in the cars, which were moving at a snail’s pace, either looked resigned to the fact that they were going to be stuck there for some time, sought alternative routes, or participated in the celebrations by occasionally letting out a slogan, waving their hands, or clapping along to the songs.

There was a lot of honking, but it was celebratory honking. No one came out of their cars to start fighting with the driver of the next car. There was no anger or frustration as far as I could see. The only time I saw a sense of urgency was when an ambulance came blaring its siren. The crowd on the road actively cleared the traffic to make way for the ambulance to pass, and it vanished further along the road in no time.

Till this point, I was witnessing the celebrations from the confines of the bus. As we got off and started walking towards our destination, I saw everything happening right in front of me.

It’s a different experience altogether to see large groups of people dancing and singing unabashedly, showing their love for their beloved team. While I have seen people celebrating the wins of our cricket team back home, it is never on this scale, and the celebrations are definitely limited to a men-only crowd. Even if some women are around, they are likely to watch from a safe distance, never becoming part of the celebrating crowd.

So it was very refreshing to see women of all ages celebrating the victory alongside men. They danced, they sang and they cheered on. It was midnight by the time we reached Taksim, and the Galatasaray fans weren’t slowing down. They formed huge circles and sang the familiar Galatasaray chants. Those who weren’t part of the main crowd cheered from the sides.

It was a unique experience for me to see people of all ages, genders and social strata coming together to celebrate something they all loved. I’d heard about sports blurring the societal lines that otherwise divide people, but it was the first time I saw it happening right in front of me.

In the huge circle of men and women jumping up and down ecstatically, you couldn’t tell who got off a BMW and who took a bus there; it didn’t seem to matter to these people who was standing next to them—man or woman, rich or poor, young or old. The only thing that seemed to matter was that all of them were rooting for one team.

The crowd was so loud that I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel scared at times; with such a highly charged crowd, untoward incidents are bound to happen. Policemen stationed at regular intervals were monitoring the situation to deal with anybody who got too rowdy.

As we continued our journey home, we thought we were leaving all this brouhaha behind. But we kept hearing the loud chants and songs for a very long time. Just as my brother had warned, I’m likely to see such demonstrations more frequently in the future. To be honest, I’m looking forward to them. But I don’t think I’ll ever forget my first one.

The writer is a freelance journalist