With the announcement made on Pakistan TV that the ‘Hilal’ (half moon) has been sighted, the atmosphere suddenly turns electric. Loudspeakers blare reciting praises to Allah, the ‘Azaan’ for evening prayers, the ‘Ishaa’ and mosques are suddenly filled to overflowing with worshipers. While a microscopic minority is happy with the appearance of the new moon on the 29th of ‘Sha’aban’, the eighth month of the Islamic calendar, the majority, however, want it to be postponed for just one more day. The group of monsters, as usual, love very much to have the Islamic month of Sha’aban of 31 lunar days.
As of now people are loaded, at least during the month of Ramadan. They would try to be pious and therefore devoted to Allah and the principles of Islam. For a long month, in the dead of night, when the witches are active, the daredevil ‘Sahar Khan’ will beat the drum and the loudspeakers will sound here and there in the mosques to wake the worshipers from deep sleep. Women got up much earlier to cook ‘sahari’ (morning meals) and then served them to family members on ‘dastarkhwan’ (something like a tablecloth). With the ‘Muezzin’ shouting Azan for Fajr, the morning prayers, the faithful would stop eating/drinking and refrain from all kinds of nonsense and actions that lead to committing sin. They will be busy offering prayers, reading the Koran, paying Zakaat and giving charity to the poor and needy. In the evening after sunset, they will break their fast by performing Iftaar and offer Taraweeh before going to bed. At the end of the month, the faithful will be rewarded by way of ‘id-ul-fitr’, the feast of joy for observing fasts.
During the first days of the holy month of Ramadan, prayer congregations in mosques overflow into the streets. However, it is not many days before attendance dwindles and returns to normal. Emotionally uplifting, Ramadan ‘nimazees’ (offering prayers) push regular nimazees into the background. Critics among seasonal visitors disparage the performance of the ‘masjid-e-intizamia committee’, the organizing committee, and seek an explanation as to why the advice they gave last Ramadan was not implemented during the one-year period of their absence. . . A group of self-proclaimed nuisances retire after the ‘jamaat’ nimaz, the prayer offered as a group, to huddle together in the heat of the ‘ham-am’ and in the process of discussing politics and other worldly things end up in disputes. The result of all this is that the majority of the members of the ‘intizamia’ committee invariably resign in the month of Ramadan or immediately after.
What worries an early riser/sleeper is that in the middle of the nights of the long month some insomniacs incessantly beat the cacophonous drum, shout ‘waqti-e-sahar’, time to eat, from loudspeakers to proclaim that the hapless fellow will have to part from his dewy sleep to take the ill-timed ‘sahari’. He would rather observe fasts on an empty stomach than watch him lose sleep. The sleeping head opens its eyes to nibble on the last minute ‘sahari’ before the ‘sahari’ time expires. However, it’s not many seconds before they find him sleeping like a log again. Most of the time he misses ‘jamaat’ and offers ‘fajr’ nimaz only after sunrise.
As if the month of Ramadan were to be there until the last syllable of recorded time, the listless ‘Roz-e-daar’, the faithful observing fasts, evokes nightmarish visions of mind-bending hunger/thirst and curfew in the monsters For him, each day of the month of Ramadan is a desert of an immense eternity and, therefore, he fears not surviving its onslaught. In this viewer, he would ask each Tom, Dick, and Harry, “How many days are left until id after tomorrow?” From the very morning he finds himself exhausted and in need of rest. By afternoon he is knocked out to the point of exhaustion. Eyes flayed for the muezzin to shout ‘Iftaar’/Azan for ‘Maghreb’ prayers from the very evening, he is ready to drop; he is more dead than alive. He may dare to eat the fast break. He doesn’t have the stamina to read an hour-long ‘Taraweeh’. He makes up his mind. After a day or two, he wedges the cop out. He is sick. The doctor advises/issues a certificate not to observe fasts so that it does not negatively affect him and his precious life in the process.
In families, regardless of status, wealth or education, where there is no “culture” of observing fasts, the members come to know about the fasts only in id, which they celebrate with (all) joy and more zeal than the observers. regular fasts. During the holy month, your breakfasts, lunches, brunches and parties are served without inhibitions or schedule changes. For beggars, swindlers and charlatans, Ramadan is God’s gift. They collect heaps in the name of ‘Zakaat’, ‘sudaqa’ (alms) and ‘khairat’ (charity) by begging/printing fake sleight of hand of receipt books and prescriptions.