TNS – The News on Sunday

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The countdown to eid would begin the day the Ramzan moon was sighted. As children, we would go out in the garden or on the roof and try to catch a glimpse of the moon on chand raat. Thereon the preparations would begin. The sewaiyyan, the sheer khorma, the mehndi, the glass bangles, the trolley set for guests, the giddy excitement whenever the bell rung, the eidee…eid was festivity at its best. Eid is the highlight of the year for so many of us. Or is it? While much remains the same when it comes to traditions of eid, there is much that has changed. For starters, on eid one could just go and ring a relative or neighbour’s bell, go in for a treat, and enjoy. There was an excitement in the anticipation of who would come to visit. However, over time the concept of “Open House” was introduced. There is now a specific time on which the doors open to guests. If you miss that time window, it is unlikely that you will get a chance to go there again. Faster times. A faster world. Another thing that has changed is the practicality. If we have met someone on the first day of eid as they visited you or met you at your grandmother’s, we no longer want to meet the same people again by visiting them, unlike the earlier culture of exchange visits, where if someone visited you, it was a must that you also visited them. There are also lesser of the big, gigantic eid get-togethers at the homes of the elders of the family, simply because families have grown and multiplied, house help is less readily available or affordable, and quite frankly it’s too much work for the overworked daughters-in-law or daughters who used to be doing the tough work of pulling off lunches for 80 people every eid. Yes, our societal dynamics are in flux, if not completely altered. Some 20 years ago, girls were so conditioned to put mehndi on their hands for eid that it never even occurred to them that eid could be without mehndi. From the crushed raw henna leaves era to the chemical-filled henna cone era, and now to the glitter-filled henna tattoos — henna still remains a part of the eid tradition. But many no longer choose to have it applied. Some find it itchy, others don’t like the smell, and yet others feel it looks very unprofessional to go to office the 4^th day of eid with henna peeling off one’s palms. [box type="shadow" align="alignright" class="red_lines" ]There are also lesser of the big, gigantic eid get-togethers at the homes of the elders of the family, simply because families have grown and multiplied, house help is less readily available or affordable, and quite frankly it’s too much work for the overworked daughters-in-law or daughters. [/box] Some things may have changed for the better, though. While a majority of women still don’t get why they should also go to the mosque for eid prayers, mainly because their men still don’t get it, there is a growing number of Pakistani women at least in the major cities that do go for eid namaz. I happen to be one of them and I can say safely that it is a beautiful experience that acts like a bridge between Ramzan and the rest of the year. In the absence of going for eid namaz, the spirituality and the connection with the Creator one has inched towards in Ramzan is suddenly lost on eid morning, and eid becomes just another day, barring the eating and meeting and dressing up. As for eidee, it still remains an intrinsic part of eid, and children (they could be in their 40s for all you know) look up to their elders in the hope of that coveted envelope. However, in earlier times one would give eidee to any and every younger person one met. Now parents have become smarter and more calculative. They have separate lifafas (envelopes) for those who give to their children generously, compared to those who give smaller sums. Read also: Eid with Maria But perhaps the most obvious change is that so many of us use eid holidays for vacationing. With the number of Pakistani expatriates increasing by the minute, and a few family members travelling on eid for vacationing, there is that void that not having one family member leaves for the rest, especially on happy occasions. Add to it that many parents can be seen complaining that their children sleep it out on the eid day. But there are some beautiful traditions of eid that continue to date. Giving (starting with the fitranah), feeding (the sewaiyyan above all), sharing (eidee is sharing money, isn’t it), reconnecting with relatives, looking good, feeling good, and celebrating having gotten the opportunity of another Ramzan. It is hoped that this — the real spirit of eid — will survive the test of time. [post_title] => As the door opens to guests... [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => door-opens-guests [to_ping] => [pinged] => http://tns.thenews.com.pk/eid-maria/ [post_modified] => 2018-06-15 05:30:47 [post_modified_gmt] => 2018-06-15 00:30:47 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://tns.thenews.com.pk/?p=84342 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [format_content] => ) [1] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 84359 [post_author] => 29 [post_date] => 2018-06-15 03:18:23 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-06-14 22:18:23 [post_content] => It must have been some days after we all became a gang at the beginning of Junior College that I recall Maria telling us how to pronounce her name. It was not Maria as in von Trapp, but “Maaria,” and it was from the Quran. From her, I heard about the Dawoodi Bohra Muslims, and their Syedna for the first time. She was the first person who I knew who had relations in Pakistan. Her elder sisters had been to Karachi. They had a fashionable male cousin there who spouted T S Eliot, smoked cigars, whose car had leather interiors and smelt of after shave and tobacco. And though we learnt in our school lessons that Muslims fasted during Ramzan, she was also the first person I personally knew who fasted. Not that I did not know any Muslims before Maria. In Delhi, a few years before we moved to Mumbai, the Alvis were our neighbours. I used to walk to school and back with their daughter, Shaheen, whose tall, gangly good looks I worshipped. She was a couple of years senior. She had a tiny little brown dog called, what else but Tiny, and I was often at her place to play with it. And at eid we wished them happy eid. But we did not socialise much as families. Maybe our fathers did not get along at work. I don’t know if the Alvis fasted. So when Maria announced one day that she was fasting, and that she would do this for a month until eid, we — two Hindus, a Sri Lankan Buddhist, a Goan Christian — were a little taken aback. Are you sure? You won’t eat anything? What, not even water? Can’t swallow saliva? Do you mind if we eat? St Xavier’s College was surrounded by street food stalls and other places to eat. Temptation lay at every step. Would we too have to give it all up for a month? Maria said she didn’t care if we ate, even in front of her. She wouldn’t be tempted was her confident reply. If “awesome!!” had been in the teen vocabulary then, we might have said it. She had been fasting since she was five, for a few days at first, and then the whole month since she was 13. She explained the concept of eating before dawn and breaking the fast at sunset. So feeling slightly guilty and after asking her a zillion times if it was okay, we went ahead and hogged canteen samosas or the masala peanuts from the channa wala outside. But our bhelpuri-paanipuri outings took a hit. We decided to defer these by a month. Every year until we finished our undergraduate studies five years later, Maria’s month of roza brought some excitement in our otherwise routine lives. She would say: “By the way guys, I will be fasting from next week.” And we would look at her with amazement and then go and stuff ourselves with bhelpuris a day or two before the ramzan month began from a stall on Marine Lines that had sprung up all of a sudden. We called the stall owner “young entrepreneur,” chuffed about being able to use the word. We had just learnt about entrepreneurship in our economics class. [box type="shadow" align="alignright" class="red_lines" ]The first time Maria invited us home for eid lunch was when we were in class 12, when we knew each other better. Much later in life, through the four years I lived in Pakistan, I had eid lunches every year at the Jillanis,’ eid dinner at Qaiser & Munchi’s, and after-eid dinners at Kishwar’s.[/box] The first time Maria invited us home for eid lunch was when we were in class 12, when we knew each other better. Much later in life, through the four years I lived in Pakistan, I had eid lunches every year at the Jillanis,’ eid dinner at Qaiser & Munchi’s, and after-eid dinners at Kishwar’s. They all knew I was vegetarian, and there would be a dal and a couple of sabzis, just for me. But three decades earlier, my first eid lunch had been a huge culture shock. And it was not the food. It was the plate on which lunch was served. There was only one plate! A massive steel one. We sat on sheets spread out on the carpet. Maria, her parents, her elder sisters Khadija and Rasheeda, their eldest sibling, brother Najmi, Sudha and I. Maria’s mother wore a pastel coloured riddah (burka), she and her sisters wore impeccably tailored shalwar kameez, heads covered with dupattas as we sat down to the meal, and her father and brother wore white pyjama kurtas, and the traditional gold thread embroidered Bohri cap. The thaal was placed in the middle, on a stand, which in turn stood on a square piece of cloth. The main dishes were in the centre, and you spooned out portions to your part of the plate. I was sixteen, and nothing in my existence thus far had prepared me for this. At my conservative Tamil Brahmin home, touching another person’s plate or food, especially if both you and the other had begun eating, was a no-no. Eating out of the same plate was beyond the pale. As I sat there with Maria’s family, I felt paralysed. Thankfully, there was no time to think. A namakdani (a small container for salt) was being passed around. That’s the Bohri meal opener. Everyone has to take a pinch of salt first and taste it before moving on to the food. As is the Bohri custom, we had the sheer khorma first, sewaiyyan-dates-and milk pudding. Even before we sat down to our meal, we had dug into another sweet — kharak, or dry dates soaked overnight in rose water and stuffed with ground almond, khoya and sugar. Done with the sheer khorma, which was served in individual dessert bowls, we moved to the main meal. Hesitant to ask if there were any vegetarian dishes, I recall eating a rice dish tentatively, hoping it had no meat. I was fearful my portion would bump into someone else’s, especially as everyone else except Sudha was helping themselves to the meat dishes. Much later, I learnt the rice was dal chawal palido, the signature Bohri dish. There were rotis too, and there was a sabzi, though I cannot remember what it was — aloo beans perhaps. Through the meal, I looked to Sudha for cues. She had an upbringing identical to mine. What she ate, I ate, and vice versa. Read also: Eid away from home  I left Maria’s home that afternoon shocked and awed by the experience. Without realising it, I had had my first proper lesson in cultural relativism. Back at home, my mother asked about the food. I raved about the sweets, and left out the common plate. Sudha and I were invited for eid lunch at Maria’s every year after that. In all honesty, I cannot say I got used to the thal, nor did I turn into a meat eater, but I came away each time with the feeling that our friendship had grown stronger. The three of us remain friends to this day. [post_title] => Eid with Maria [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => eid-maria [to_ping] => [pinged] => http://tns.thenews.com.pk/eid-away-home/ [post_modified] => 2018-06-15 00:07:29 [post_modified_gmt] => 2018-06-14 19:07:29 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://tns.thenews.com.pk/?p=84359 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [format_content] => ) [2] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 84357 [post_author] => 29 [post_date] => 2018-06-15 03:14:46 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-06-14 22:14:46 [post_content] => Years ago, when I was editing news stories from the United States for broadcast in Pakistan, every eid required us to send in a predictable news package of the desi community celebrating the occasion. A shot would pan from an unfamiliar, cloudy sky to rows of somber-looking Pakistani men praying at a mosque or cultural centre; then cut to the women’s area of the building, with sudden burst of colourful clothing, happy faces and lots of kids running around. Add to it shots of an eid bazaar from the night before, a voiceover about josh and kharosh and the emotional twist of a Pakistani immigrant telling viewers in his homeland how much he misses his country, family and food. Every year the same story caters to an uninterested audience but this, truly is, eid away from home — a happy celebration with a heavy heart. For when you leave home — for a better life or worse, for more or less — there will always be something missing from your being, a hole that will remain unfilled. It is occasions like eid that bring a pause to the chores of daily life and reignite questions of identity, home, and family. The immigrant eid is an attempt at recreating a revised version of what it once used to be. Perhaps replacing the nani walas and the dadi walas with friends, half friends, and acquaintances. I spent the last two eids at my sister’s house in southern California where she has lived for nineteen years. Away from cousins, uncles and aunts, she says that her friends are her family.  She is a very busy doctor with two young children and her vast family of friends. For busy people with overscheduled lives in the American suburbs, eid preparation must get off the ground without delay. Texting begins well in time to fairly distribute hosting of chand raat parties, eid lunches and dinners and the events flowing into the following weekend. Things get booked up early so if you want to host the main eid party, you need to strike first to get the spot. These are young, professional Pakistani families that are modern, forward-looking, and well integrated into the communities they live in. They are politically active, socially engaged, ambitious, entrepreneurial and competitive. Their children are growing up in a world entirely different from their own. Every time they want to inject their past into their children’s lives, they have to do it in a way that will make sense to their younger ones. [box type="shadow" align="alignright" class="red_lines" ]This year, I will be in Italy where I don’t know other Pakistanis. There will be no kormas and sheermals and biryanis but my son will be handing out small gifts from Pakistan to all his four-year old classmates, with a special note to each of them about the festive day.[/box] So occasions like eid have become child-centred. After the ritualistic elements of eidi, adaab and sewaiyyan, the practicals of a new kind of eid take over. Children plan eid-related activities, decorating the house days in advance and making goody bags for their friends. They write well researched speeches about kindness, sharing and peace, and they make self-assessment charts on the basis of their good deeds during Ramzan. They note down household chores they participated in and every time they shunned temptation and avoided conflict. It’s an eid that encourages them to give the rituals a purpose. It involves them beyond mehndi the night before, into investing their time and effort to make the day meaningful. My mother, an educationist in Pakistan and a keen observer of how things are done in her daughters’ houses, calls it a ‘changed pedagogy’. This method of making eid innovative, interactive, and child-oriented is an effort to keep it relevant to the second generation. It is an acknowledgement by those who migrated that their children’s experience of culture, tradition and religion is different from theirs. It’s their hope that the second generation will embrace the occasion if it matches well with the system of learning and doing that they are growing up with. Of course, not all families follow this trend but whether it is the suburbs of New Jersey and Texas, or the streets of Redbridge and Bradford, or even all those unexpected small and big towns of Europe where Pakistanis have made homes, eid comes filled with nostalgia and recreation of a memory of lost time and place. Eids abroad can be lonely, especially for families that have been torn apart because of migration. And then there’s this other matter: twelve years ago, my first eid outside Pakistan was in London where I lived in a University international housing with only two other Muslim girls on the same floor — a Palestinian from Jordon and a Malaysian. All three of us had ‘our’ eids on different days. Not only was that incomprehensible for everyone around us, it was also quite embarrassing as a Muslim that even a religious festivity couldn’t unite us. Years later, I spent eid with a family in the United States and while one part of the family celebrated, the sister visiting from London continued with her fast because there was a disagreement on the dates set by the Islamic communities of the two countries. Over the many years I have realised that what makes eid abroad remarkably different from eid at home is not just the lack of extended family, but the holidays. My sister sees her patients all day if eid falls on a working day, and her kids go to school. The day doesn’t seem to be any different. Year after year, I have wondered, what is eid if I spend it attending a class, sitting for an exam, or just doing what I do every other day? If eid was an international annual holiday, then it would have had a different flavour. In Italy, where I now live, families with children living abroad reconvene at the family home to spend Christmas together. Christmas eve parties and Christmas lunches continue in the same tradition for generations and the long holiday offers an opportunity for the whole extended family to come together, as seems to be the purpose of these events. If my sister and I could descend upon our Karachi home with our families and if all our cousins and aunts and uncles did the same, eid for our children would be a natural continuation of the eid that we used to spend. Surely with some nostalgia that comes with age, but with little need to wholly recreate. Read also: A literary rendition This year, I will be in Italy where I don’t know other Pakistanis. There will be no kormas and sheermals and biryanis but my son will be handing out small gifts from Pakistan to all his four-year old classmates, with a special note to each of them about the festive day. It will be my recreated, migrant version of the eid that I grew up with, that required no explanation, no information. I’m hoping this will make my very little son enjoy the occasion whether he understands it or not. [post_title] => Eid away from home [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => eid-away-home [to_ping] => [pinged] => http://tns.thenews.com.pk/literary-rendition/ [post_modified] => 2018-06-15 00:08:31 [post_modified_gmt] => 2018-06-14 19:08:31 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://tns.thenews.com.pk/?p=84357 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [format_content] => ) [3] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 84364 [post_author] => 29 [post_date] => 2018-06-15 03:10:41 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-06-14 22:10:41 [post_content] => Eid has been mentioned in Urdu literature more in the manner of a metaphor. The occasion means merriment, people coming together and greeting each other and in this sense it has been used for either the day facilitating the meeting of people, or if it fails to do so, it becomes a metaphor for lost opportunities. Nazir Akbarabadi’s idiom was less stylized than most Urdu poets so there is greater scope for a descriptive understanding of the society that he was living in. The poems with more pointed references to eid give a good account of the custom and rituals that constituted the lives of people in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century: And it had to be more joyous for it came after a month of abstinence and fasting: And then it brings possibilities for everyone: Perhaps the best metaphor has been employed by Ghalib when he takes eid for either a joyous occasion or a moment that is absolutely glorious in its fulfillment, or rather the pure potential of its fulfillment:   And many other poets have used it as a stock image:   And if it does not happen, then it is a sad day because the contrary was supposed to happen. The eid is auspicious but it seems that the day has passed without meeting its full potential:   Then it appears that the occasion, too, has brought with it expectation which if it does not meet with its full intention still yield benefits, because it is a ritual, and the ritual does have its advantages, though not of the same intensity as of an authentic experience:   But then the poet is mortified by the lack of consistency or the discrepancy between what his own life has been and what his expectations or the drive for the ideal has been: The surkh rung of eid has got a paradoxical relationship with the spilling of blood, and one can be mistaken for the other:   And this paradox of possibilities is explored still further: But then what does merriment consist of? And then there has been a tinge of humour: Read also: Musings of an eid skeptic There cannot be enough intensity of experience without the overbearing presence of the raqeeb:     [post_title] => A literary rendition [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => literary-rendition [to_ping] => [pinged] => http://tns.thenews.com.pk/musings-eid-skeptic/ [post_modified] => 2018-06-15 12:09:08 [post_modified_gmt] => 2018-06-15 07:09:08 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://tns.thenews.com.pk/?p=84364 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [format_content] => ) [4] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 84362 [post_author] => 29 [post_date] => 2018-06-15 03:06:09 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-06-14 22:06:09 [post_content] => Growing up, I always hated eid. Being Bohri meant that we celebrated it two days in advance to the “public”, and the two extra days seemed to stretch interminably until thankfully, it was time to go back to school. School was welcome but it was the “What did you do on eid?” questions that I always dreaded. The answer was usually, nothing. I don’t have ten thousand cousins, my mom is an only child, so you can imagine how small our eid affair was. Going for eid prayer is an alien concept and as an unfashionable, dumpy child, I had nice eid clothes, just gaudy enough to be praised out of social nicety. For many years, the second day of “public” eid was when one of our closest family friends threw a huge dinner party at her place. This was when I was a part of a “big family” celebration by proxy and those two hours were the only ones worth looking forward to. The rest of the days, given our ages, was when our parents stuffed us in the car and took us on the usual visits. Sometimes we would see our aunt twice because she would visit in the morning and we would visit her in the evening. Even the much awaited eidee was not something I was excited for because all my life it increased in Rs50 increments till we were finally deemed worth Rs1000 of eidee. I would go back to school and girls would have gathered Rs 10000 eidee for the lucky accident of being the only daughters, making me wonder WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE? Another eid tradition was inviting the “nand” aka my Phuphu, for eid dawat, always a sordid affair, depending on our tensions with her in any given year. As you can tell, quite the fun family we are. Over the years so many of these traditions have been reduced. Favourite neighbours’ second-day eid dawats are a thing of the past. Mom is too tired to cook a four course meal for our family dawat, Foodpanda is our new best friend. In those years I have learned a thing or two, and made new traditions. Nothing beats roadside Chinese during the eid rush when out shopping with family. I always try out a new dessert every eid for 3 years now. My salted caramel chocolate tart was a thing of beauty if I am very honest. I attempt to make banoffee pie every year and against my hair-in-a-bun, pajama-doning will, I dress up for an eid selfie. This year though, I denied myself any eid shopping, choosing to donate to charity. The only bit of luxury I am going for are a mani, pedi and a facial - on a coupon, of course. I look forward to catching up with friends, READING and watching Netflix and maybe go catch Oceans 8. Read also: Editorial I still think eid is a glorified tehvar, built on commercialization but then again what isn’t? It’s the one time of year your Instagram is flooded with beautiful people, the most cynical of the cynics warm up to sheer khorma and eid hugs are as awkward as ever. In any case I welcome the long weekend because hello, ME time (and forerro rocher cake) and that is eid for me. [post_title] => Musings of an eid skeptic [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => musings-eid-skeptic [to_ping] => [pinged] => http://tns.thenews.com.pk/editorial-132/#.WyNm8oozbIU [post_modified] => 2018-06-15 12:15:39 [post_modified_gmt] => 2018-06-15 07:15:39 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://tns.thenews.com.pk/?p=84362 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [format_content] => ) [5] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 84348 [post_author] => 29 [post_date] => 2018-06-15 03:02:02 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-06-14 22:02:02 [post_content] => Eid is here again, giving everyone an occasion to celebrate. It is a culmination of a month of piety and charity, and brings with it a reason to be happy. Should it therefore be taken for granted? This year, we at The News on Sunday want to reflect on what eid means to us as a people. It is certainly a time when religion and culture mix in a way that brings out the best of both. It is a time to carry on traditions; to stick to rituals and to also go beyond rituals — to pass on values to the next generation. This is what makes the eid prayers significant. But times change and so do values. So it is time to recollect all that we have retained and things or traditions or rituals we have allowed to let go. Migration is an essential part of modern lives; so how do people who have moved away from home and family celebrate eid, in foreign countries and alien cultures. It turns out that people would celebrate it no matter where they are in whatever manner they can. Nostalgia is the guide and eid happens. What about people of other faiths around us or people of our faith in non-Muslim countries. What they know of eid depends on how inclusive we make it for them. In our Special Report today, there is an account of an Indian Hindu celebrating eid in a Dawoodi Bohra household. This is the kind of spirit that we need to reinforce amongst us. Read also: As the door opens to guests... Not the least important is eid in literature, particularly poetry. Over to you and Eid Mubarak… [post_title] => Editorial [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => editorial-132 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2018-06-15 00:17:08 [post_modified_gmt] => 2018-06-14 19:17:08 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://tns.thenews.com.pk/?p=84348 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [format_content] => ) ) [post_count] => 6 [current_post] => -1 [in_the_loop] => [post] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 84342 [post_author] => 29 [post_date] => 2018-06-15 03:22:27 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-06-14 22:22:27 [post_content] => A wave of nostalgia grips most of us when we reminisce about eid of bygone years. The countdown to eid would begin the day the Ramzan moon was sighted. As children, we would go out in the garden or on the roof and try to catch a glimpse of the moon on chand raat. Thereon the preparations would begin. The sewaiyyan, the sheer khorma, the mehndi, the glass bangles, the trolley set for guests, the giddy excitement whenever the bell rung, the eidee…eid was festivity at its best. Eid is the highlight of the year for so many of us. Or is it? While much remains the same when it comes to traditions of eid, there is much that has changed. For starters, on eid one could just go and ring a relative or neighbour’s bell, go in for a treat, and enjoy. There was an excitement in the anticipation of who would come to visit. However, over time the concept of “Open House” was introduced. There is now a specific time on which the doors open to guests. If you miss that time window, it is unlikely that you will get a chance to go there again. Faster times. A faster world. Another thing that has changed is the practicality. If we have met someone on the first day of eid as they visited you or met you at your grandmother’s, we no longer want to meet the same people again by visiting them, unlike the earlier culture of exchange visits, where if someone visited you, it was a must that you also visited them. There are also lesser of the big, gigantic eid get-togethers at the homes of the elders of the family, simply because families have grown and multiplied, house help is less readily available or affordable, and quite frankly it’s too much work for the overworked daughters-in-law or daughters who used to be doing the tough work of pulling off lunches for 80 people every eid. Yes, our societal dynamics are in flux, if not completely altered. Some 20 years ago, girls were so conditioned to put mehndi on their hands for eid that it never even occurred to them that eid could be without mehndi. From the crushed raw henna leaves era to the chemical-filled henna cone era, and now to the glitter-filled henna tattoos — henna still remains a part of the eid tradition. But many no longer choose to have it applied. Some find it itchy, others don’t like the smell, and yet others feel it looks very unprofessional to go to office the 4^th day of eid with henna peeling off one’s palms. [box type="shadow" align="alignright" class="red_lines" ]There are also lesser of the big, gigantic eid get-togethers at the homes of the elders of the family, simply because families have grown and multiplied, house help is less readily available or affordable, and quite frankly it’s too much work for the overworked daughters-in-law or daughters. [/box] Some things may have changed for the better, though. While a majority of women still don’t get why they should also go to the mosque for eid prayers, mainly because their men still don’t get it, there is a growing number of Pakistani women at least in the major cities that do go for eid namaz. I happen to be one of them and I can say safely that it is a beautiful experience that acts like a bridge between Ramzan and the rest of the year. In the absence of going for eid namaz, the spirituality and the connection with the Creator one has inched towards in Ramzan is suddenly lost on eid morning, and eid becomes just another day, barring the eating and meeting and dressing up. As for eidee, it still remains an intrinsic part of eid, and children (they could be in their 40s for all you know) look up to their elders in the hope of that coveted envelope. However, in earlier times one would give eidee to any and every younger person one met. Now parents have become smarter and more calculative. They have separate lifafas (envelopes) for those who give to their children generously, compared to those who give smaller sums. Read also: Eid with Maria But perhaps the most obvious change is that so many of us use eid holidays for vacationing. With the number of Pakistani expatriates increasing by the minute, and a few family members travelling on eid for vacationing, there is that void that not having one family member leaves for the rest, especially on happy occasions. Add to it that many parents can be seen complaining that their children sleep it out on the eid day. But there are some beautiful traditions of eid that continue to date. Giving (starting with the fitranah), feeding (the sewaiyyan above all), sharing (eidee is sharing money, isn’t it), reconnecting with relatives, looking good, feeling good, and celebrating having gotten the opportunity of another Ramzan. It is hoped that this — the real spirit of eid — will survive the test of time. [post_title] => As the door opens to guests... 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