Ramadan Freakouts in Kashmir

With the announcement made on Pakistani television that the ‘Hilal’ (half moon) has been sighted, the atmosphere suddenly becomes electric. Loudspeakers blare reciting praises to Allah, the ‘Azaan’ for evening prayers, the ‘Ishaa’ and the 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, wants it to be postponed for just one more day. The group of monsters, as usual, loves very much to have the Islamic month of Sha’aban of 31 lunar days.

From now on people are loaded, at least during the month of Ramadan. They would try to be pious and therefore devoted to Allah and the tenets of Islam. For a long month, in the dead of night, when the witches are active, the reckless ‘Sahar Khan’ will beat the drum and loudspeakers will blare in mosques here and there to wake worshipers from deep sleep. Women would get up much earlier to cook ‘sahari’ (morning meals) and then serve 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 Qur’an, 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 festival of joy for observing fasts.

During the first days of the holy month of Ramadan, the prayer congregations in the mosques overflow into the streets. However, it’s not many days before attendance drops and returns to normal. Emotionally high, Ramadan ‘nimazees’ (who offer prayers) push regular nimazees into the background. Critics among seasonal visitors despise the performance of the ‘masjid-e-intizamia committee’, the organizing committee, and seek an explanation as to why the advice given by them last Ramadan was not implemented during the one-year period of their absence. . A group of self-proclaimed troublemakers retire after the ‘jamaat’ nimaz, the group prayer offered, to huddle in the heat of the ‘ham-am’ and in the process of discussing politics and other mundane things end up in disputes. The result of all this is that most of the members of the ‘intizamia’ committee invariably resign in or immediately after the month of Ramadan.

What worries a sleepyhead/an early riser is that in the dark of the nights of the long month some insomniacs incessantly beat the cacophonous drum, shouting ‘waqti-e-sahar’, time to eat, from loudspeakers to proclaim that the hapless companion he will have to break away 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 ‘sahari’ minute before the ‘sahari’ time expires. However, it isn’t many seconds before they find him sleeping soundly again. Most of the time he misses ‘jamaat’ and offers ‘fajr’ nimaz only after sunrise.

As if the month of Ramadan is going to be there to the last syllable of recorded time, the listless ‘Roz-e-daar’, the faithful observing fasts, evokes nightmarish visions of hallucinatory hunger/thirst pangs 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 of Tom, Dick, and Harry, “how many days to go after tomorrow?” Since the same morning he has been exhausted and in need of rest. By afternoon he is knocked out to the point of exhaustion. With eyes skinned for the muezzin to shout ‘Iftaar’ / Azan for ‘Maghreb’ prayers from the very evening, he is ready to fall; he is more dead than alive. He may he dare to eat the rest of the fast. He doesn’t have the stamina to read an hour-long ‘Taraweeh’. He decides. After a day or two, he wedges the cop out. He is sick. The doctor advises/issues the certificate not to observe fasts unless it adversely affects him and, in the process, his precious life.

In families, regardless of status, wealth or education, where there is no “culture” of observing fasts, members come to know about fasts only in id, which they celebrate with (all) joy and more zeal than the observers. regular fasting. During the holy month their breakfasts, lunches, brunches and parties are served without inhibitions or schedule changes. For beggars, swindlers and charlatans, Ramadan is God’s gift. They collect lots in the name of ‘Zakaat’, ‘sudaqa’ (alms) and ‘khairat’ (charity) by begging/printing fake sleight of hand receipt and prescription pads.