Ah! Eidul Fitr has arrived and we have started celebrating the festive occasion with traditional zeal and fervour, have we not? After all, this is the time for people to come together and celebrate with one another.
The three-day festive occasion – which marks the end of the holy month of Ramazan – brings us many beautiful moments to relish. On the first day, we get up early, take a bath, put on new clothes and a pleasant fragrance, and offer Eid prayer.
We, then, meet and greet our neighbours, send text messages and make phone calls to our friends, relatives and colleagues living away, and plan gatherings with them, besides hosting some at home.
Most of us, indeed all of us also remember our loved ones, who have passed away, recall the moments spent with them during the previous such festivals and visit their graves to offer fateha.
Then as we reach home, we don’t wait to have our bowls full of either seviyan or sheer khurma. Unarguably, eating one of these foods is something we cannot do without and cannot get enough of. It assumes a central position during the festival.
Eidi is another part of the three-day festival that increases our excitement. All of us love to get new, crispy and clean currency notes from our parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts. It is something we get a lot of when we are very young, but as we grow older, the number of people giving us eidi decreases.
Remembering lessons
On this Eid too, we will enjoy these moments, foods and gatherings with our loved ones. But, apart from traditionally celebrating the festival, we must remember the lesson of patience we learn during fasting and praying in the holy month of Ramazan. We must also continue following the resolve of stopping ourselves from getting angry and being rude and dishonest, and all the rules that our religion has set for us.
It is all in our mind, as if we programme it to only do good and stay positive for one month, it will remain so. We only need to maintain the willpower that we so recently put into use with such success in Ramazan. It is the mission that we should follow so that there could be less intolerance and no violence among the people.
We as Muslims believe that Ramazan teaches us self-discipline, self-control, sacrifice, and empathy for the less fortunate. It also encourages generosity and compulsory charity. Similarly, we should also use Eid as an occasion to reflect upon ourselves and instil compassion for the less fortunate to make society a better place to live in.
The writer is a member of staff. He can be reached at [email protected]. Twitter: @blawal_mir
