by Althaf Shajahan Moothantevilayil on Saturday, August 18, 2012 at 12:54am ·
I
am good at this. The very act of ruminating over the nostalgia of the
Ramadhan months and Ids of childhood on the eve of every Id. And writing
this over my blog. Can't help it.
This time on this last friday of the Holy Month,near to the night of power (Lailathu Qadr) and when people start wishing each other Advanced Eid Mubarak, I sit puzzled over this nite.
I feared and loved Ramadhan in my childhood. Fear for the hardship of not getting access to food even if you are not fasting and the great wait for Maghrib Azan. Trying to sleep and wail away time till that golden azan came from nearby Manakkal Mosque.
Womenfolk would start their "Aripathiri Business" every evening. And often on all evenings, you got good meat curries. The sheer omnipresence of fruits, especially those of Dates and watermelons were vivid memories. Vappa, Umma and others completing recitals of Quran during day time surprised me. The huge crowd for mouthwatering " tharikanji" at the mosque after Maghrib was great memory of every Ramdhan.
Beyond all these memories of food and others, there is something which this month stood for, for the people who lived around me. When we kids heard the news of sighting of moon, the shawwal pira ' with awe and happiness and looked forward to the fitr zakath distribution, the mixing contours of mutton curry and coconut milk on the ""
Aripathiris next day and the aroma of Atar and Vappa's preparations for the day, I remember today, all of a sudden, seeing certain other feelings written on people around me.
I grew up in a joint family and my relatives lived around. There were grandpas, grandmas, aunts ,.. around. Each with deep pains, of disease , of poverty, of not having their beloved ones around or some other death which happened then. Those were the days when womenfolk did not have soaps to discuss nor grandparents having lost their control over families. In those hot dry months (it was March April Ramadhan in this period of my childhood), they used to chant Thasbeeh , do a lot of optional namaz and menfolk was doing "ithikaf" at mosques during the entire day. I wondered what was happening? They avoided Eebath and Fasad (gossips) in toto. TVs went to oblivion. Womenfolk waited for their husbands from Taraweeh while they were deep in prayers late into night. None were tired, to my surprise. Few overslept in the morning in spite of waking up for pre-dawn "beginning of "fast.
And now I recall, when we kids hugged each other telling "Eid Mubarak". I saw that none of these women were happy or excited .Because, for most of these uneducated and illiterate women, this month was more than the extra burden of cooking delicacies. It was spiritual cleansing happening. And this was the time of the year,that they felt, Allah would listen to the mine of worries, pains and woes which these women bore deep within themselves. They cried and chanted Istigharah on the Muzallah while they made their "Makkanas" wet with tears with prayers for absolving them of the sins and pains. The greatest gossip mongers and quarrelsome ones transitioned, albeit temporarily, to this state. I, as a child, have crawled around these womenfolk's, muzallahs , confused about what was so much to them to cry about and ask raising cupped hands upwards. After All, these women seemed most happy otherwise. And I remember that these women hardly ate anything even after breaking fast, And neither the men folk or we kids asked them whether they had something. In between the food preparation and these nightlong prayers , I believe , they forgot themselves,
And None of these grandparents were happy, rather many were tearful and morose at the end of Ramadhan and eve of Eid. They feared that it would have been the final Ramadhan month of their life and they do not know whether they will live for another. They wished for another Ramadhan when Allah's blessings would flower again, The disappointment that another Ramadhan had left them had deeply pained them.
I can read these meanings to these memories beyond the cliched view of Nonveg delights and community engagement assopciated with Ramadhan. The deep felt regret of showing injustice to this month is deep within. And I bid farewell to yet another month. Ramadhan had become long a formality and Eids had , of late another, except when others ask for a Eid treat. That spring of good deeds had long been replaced with a perpetual drought of goodness in me.
And I am deeply hurt when on these days, innocent ones had to leave the very city which I live in and in which I lived, for the scare of the people of same faith who are on their deepest prayers in the holiest nights of power in the holiest month worth equal to thousands of nights full of prayer. Ya Ilahi, what a punishment . What had we come upto
And well to add, today in the final Ramzan Jumua Prayers, a old person scolded me in open for not keeping my trousers folded above the ankle. I was speechless.Hurt and humiliated before the crowd, I could not have tolerated a doctoral fellow at a premier institute being admonished by a rickshaw puller, if and only if, my muthunabi Prophet Muhammad (saw) wont have told
: "O People! Your God is one; your father is one; no preference of an Arab neither over non-Arab nor of a non-Arab over an Arab or red over black or black over red except for the most righteous. Verily the most honored of you is the most righteous.". Yeah I am nothing before Allah and that Bujurg would be closer to Him than me.
And Eid Mubarak .. I can hear the humming of "Allahu Akbaralluhu Akbar.." away from the horizon.
This time on this last friday of the Holy Month,near to the night of power (Lailathu Qadr) and when people start wishing each other Advanced Eid Mubarak, I sit puzzled over this nite.
I feared and loved Ramadhan in my childhood. Fear for the hardship of not getting access to food even if you are not fasting and the great wait for Maghrib Azan. Trying to sleep and wail away time till that golden azan came from nearby Manakkal Mosque.
Womenfolk would start their "Aripathiri Business" every evening. And often on all evenings, you got good meat curries. The sheer omnipresence of fruits, especially those of Dates and watermelons were vivid memories. Vappa, Umma and others completing recitals of Quran during day time surprised me. The huge crowd for mouthwatering " tharikanji" at the mosque after Maghrib was great memory of every Ramdhan.
Beyond all these memories of food and others, there is something which this month stood for, for the people who lived around me. When we kids heard the news of sighting of moon, the shawwal pira ' with awe and happiness and looked forward to the fitr zakath distribution, the mixing contours of mutton curry and coconut milk on the ""
Aripathiris next day and the aroma of Atar and Vappa's preparations for the day, I remember today, all of a sudden, seeing certain other feelings written on people around me.
I grew up in a joint family and my relatives lived around. There were grandpas, grandmas, aunts ,.. around. Each with deep pains, of disease , of poverty, of not having their beloved ones around or some other death which happened then. Those were the days when womenfolk did not have soaps to discuss nor grandparents having lost their control over families. In those hot dry months (it was March April Ramadhan in this period of my childhood), they used to chant Thasbeeh , do a lot of optional namaz and menfolk was doing "ithikaf" at mosques during the entire day. I wondered what was happening? They avoided Eebath and Fasad (gossips) in toto. TVs went to oblivion. Womenfolk waited for their husbands from Taraweeh while they were deep in prayers late into night. None were tired, to my surprise. Few overslept in the morning in spite of waking up for pre-dawn "beginning of "fast.
And now I recall, when we kids hugged each other telling "Eid Mubarak". I saw that none of these women were happy or excited .Because, for most of these uneducated and illiterate women, this month was more than the extra burden of cooking delicacies. It was spiritual cleansing happening. And this was the time of the year,that they felt, Allah would listen to the mine of worries, pains and woes which these women bore deep within themselves. They cried and chanted Istigharah on the Muzallah while they made their "Makkanas" wet with tears with prayers for absolving them of the sins and pains. The greatest gossip mongers and quarrelsome ones transitioned, albeit temporarily, to this state. I, as a child, have crawled around these womenfolk's, muzallahs , confused about what was so much to them to cry about and ask raising cupped hands upwards. After All, these women seemed most happy otherwise. And I remember that these women hardly ate anything even after breaking fast, And neither the men folk or we kids asked them whether they had something. In between the food preparation and these nightlong prayers , I believe , they forgot themselves,
And None of these grandparents were happy, rather many were tearful and morose at the end of Ramadhan and eve of Eid. They feared that it would have been the final Ramadhan month of their life and they do not know whether they will live for another. They wished for another Ramadhan when Allah's blessings would flower again, The disappointment that another Ramadhan had left them had deeply pained them.
I can read these meanings to these memories beyond the cliched view of Nonveg delights and community engagement assopciated with Ramadhan. The deep felt regret of showing injustice to this month is deep within. And I bid farewell to yet another month. Ramadhan had become long a formality and Eids had , of late another, except when others ask for a Eid treat. That spring of good deeds had long been replaced with a perpetual drought of goodness in me.
And I am deeply hurt when on these days, innocent ones had to leave the very city which I live in and in which I lived, for the scare of the people of same faith who are on their deepest prayers in the holiest nights of power in the holiest month worth equal to thousands of nights full of prayer. Ya Ilahi, what a punishment . What had we come upto
And well to add, today in the final Ramzan Jumua Prayers, a old person scolded me in open for not keeping my trousers folded above the ankle. I was speechless.Hurt and humiliated before the crowd, I could not have tolerated a doctoral fellow at a premier institute being admonished by a rickshaw puller, if and only if, my muthunabi Prophet Muhammad (saw) wont have told
: "O People! Your God is one; your father is one; no preference of an Arab neither over non-Arab nor of a non-Arab over an Arab or red over black or black over red except for the most righteous. Verily the most honored of you is the most righteous.". Yeah I am nothing before Allah and that Bujurg would be closer to Him than me.
And Eid Mubarak .. I can hear the humming of "Allahu Akbaralluhu Akbar.." away from the horizon.
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