Adil Najam, Bilal Zuberi, Owais Mughal
We want all of you to help us write this post for us.
Tell us, please, what Eid in Pakistan means to you by filling in the sentence that starts with “Eid is…” We are particularly interested in how you would complete this sentence in terms of the truly ‘Pakistani’ social norms that have evolved around the event.
You can complete the sentence as many times as you want; in ways that are humorous, thoughtful, philosophical, even cynical; but, please, not spiteful.
Here are a few ways in which we thought we might build the sentence:
- Eid is… when the postman comes to your door and then refuses to give you the mail until ‘Eidee’ is given to him.
- Eid is… Not being able to eat much on Eid day because your body finally got adjusted to the roza routine!
- Eid is… going to Eid prayers in old chappals for fear of losing my new ones.
- Eid is… traffic jams on Chaand Raat and people pour out for last minute shopping… And sight-seeing!
- Eid is… taking my mother and sister to the darzi on a daily basis after the 20th roza.
- Eid is… when people hug each other and forget their differences; at least for a little while.
We hope you will play along and add more to this list of what ‘Eid is…’ in Pakistan.
Ours is a blog about Pakistani society so we have been focussing on the social aspects of Ramzan and Eid. Of course, these are religious events and have deep spiritual importance. In focussing on the social practice of Ramzan and Eid we do not wish to understate the religious significance; we merely wish to focus on what we can do best here and leave the deeper religious discussions for other forums better suited for those discussions.
By the way, as you might have noticed, we started our Eid buildup – in typical Paksitani fashion – rather early with a whole series of posts that began with teh advent of Ramzan.
- We started with the advent Ramzan and a post about khajoors (dates).
- We followed it up with something about Ramzan Cricket, a uniquely Pakistani ritual.
- Next was something about Qawalli, which is a staple of PTV Sehri transmissions.
- Shirazi launched us into the Eid mood by writing about Eid Cards.
- We started getting into the mood of things with a post on auspiciousness of Juma-tul-Vida, Diwali and Eid.
- We have had our Eid poetry mehfil going for a few days now and as they say, ‘ab mehfil joosh pay hai.’
- Of course, food is integral to everything; especially Eid… in this case Eid Cakes.
- Finally, our Eid Mubarak post a little while ago thanking you all for your support and interest.
Eid is a happiness collection dayJ when u are all dolled up wearing your best clothes, jeweled up in bangles and with mehndi beautifully adorned on hands, sheer khurma, chnad mubarak calls on chand raat, eid greetings to all elders, meeting family members… all seems a ritual.Three hugs and a cheery “eid mubarakâ€
dear farrukh
thanks for your detailed and informative answer
Adnan, thank you for that sentiment and gesture. I think this is the real spirit of Eid. I commend you and do the same if I have offended anyone.
On Eid for us outside Pakistan, there are so many that in fact some Eid prayers are far bigger than even in Pakistan. In Texas, I am told, a football stadium is used as Eidgah…. Chicago, New York, Los Angeles also have HUGE namaz. In my mosque we had 3 sepertae Eid namaz shifts, each with around 1500 people (men AND women) and then food afterwards for everyone. So the prayer and the social aspects get combined.
AoA All!
So finally today is Eid celebration. Eid is the day of forgivness so I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to ask apology from everyone who would have hurt by my rude comments, hope there would be no hard feelings. I also forgave to thosw who would have reacted rudely.
Forgive others, it would bring much spice in your celebration. have fun and tata.
p.s: a question from all overseas, how do you pray eid namaz, i mean I think there would be no concept of Eidgah over there, so in community centers or what?
Eid is:
Going to Faisal mosque, stuggling to find a parking space, then being harrassed by the ISI as one trinds to find a place to pray, then looking up at the sky to see two helicopters fly in the “Saviours of the Nation” to the mosque to honour us with their presence.