By Abu Zafar Adil Azmi,
Each year when the sound of a particular siren is heard in the Jama Masjid area of old Delhi, people begin the first fast of Ramazan. They go to the neighborhood mosque as soon as they hear the call Azan for Morning Prayer. This year, the crowd includes a little child, holding his father’s fingers as he comes to the mosque. The child had woken up four hours earlier than usual with others in the home. Although the child’s mother told him he was too young to fast, he did not listen and kept the fast.
In Delhi, there is different environment during Ramazan in Muslim neighborhoods like Jama Masjid, Okhla, Jamia Nagar and Seelampur. From dawn to dusk and from dusk to dawn, the environment is conducive for nurturing piety. Mosques are filled with worshippers, hotels are closed during the day time and the Iftar market shines in the evening — all of these make a different environment. The Azan and sounds of sirens are the signals for starting and breaking the fast.
Time and techniques to wake up
Mohammad Anis Siddiqui, an 80-year-old retired teacher, says, “I’ve been listening to the voices of sirens in Delhi since 1955.” Sometimes, he says, the sirens were not enough to get people out of bed, so different techniques have to be employed. “Sometimes announcements are made through mosques and at some places some people voluntarily walk to the homes in an area and announce “This is dawn, this is the time to eat ‘Sehar’. At some places people sing ‘Naat’ from mosque’s loudspeaker to awaken people.”
India is a big country geographically, whether measured from North to South or East to West, so wide that dawn arrives an hour earlier in the east. This is why the time of Iftar and Sehar in West Bengal and Assam, the eastern part of country, is more than one hour earlier than in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and the western part of the country.
Ramazan dishes
“In the past, ‘Sewai’ (vermicelli), a special sweet prepared from wheat, was made by hand in Delhi and northern parts of India. But now there is no handmade Sewai or jaggery,” said Abdul Qayyum, a 70-year-old farmer from Azamgarh. Mohammad Taha, a management graduate, said, “I like ‘feni’ (milk cake), vegetables and parantha at Sehar time.”
Compared to life in the villages, people from cities already go to sleep late at night but in the Ramadhan period they stay up even later. So some people take the Sehar meal late at night and then sleep later in the morning.
Traditional foods vary around the country. In some parts of northern India like Azamgarh, Allahabad, Lucknow, and Kanpur, a liquid mixture of ground coconut, cashew nut, and almond is very common.
Noor Deshmukh, an engineer from IIT Delhi, remembers Maharashtrian specialties. “In Aurangabad, Jalna and Pusad banana and milk are so popular in Sehri.” Muslims from different parts of the country say there are many variations: in the south, people like to eat dates and rice. At some places ‘pao’, a special type of bread is in great demand in the month of Ramadhan and some part of eastern Utter Pradesh, pao with milk is a favorite dish. Therefore bakeries try to compete in making different shapes and tastes of pao.
In schools with Muslims in majority, schedules are changed. After the Fajr prayer before sunrise, Muslim neighborhoods are silent. As soon as the afternoon is over, shops open and traffic gains momentum. Iftar markets come to life.
Mohammad Sajid, a student of philosophy at Jamia Millia Islamia, says, ‘It seems that Ramadhan is a month of eating and drinking. “Iftar and invitations for iftar are so old, but previously there weren’t so many food items, nor as many iftar as today.”
Political Iftar
Journalist MJ Akbar is critical of Iftar parties. In one of his columns titled ‘A Political Iftar party in Mumbai’ he writes that a ‘politician’s limited brain with unlimited mischief thinks that the Iftar Party gives him an opportunity for future capitalization among the Muslim masses. It gives him the ultimate advantage of mixing with the Muslims where he can flex his political muscles without any opponent present in the ring! It provides him a pleasant platform to talk about the confluence of Ganga-Jamni tehzeeb (existence of pluralistic society) although his main aim is to garner Muslim votes. It is an attempt to showcase who is who of politics.”
He further stated “It is a race to boost the public image of the politician where parameter of power is measured on the basis of cash flow. It is a public relation exercise where each and every object of presentation (read flashbulbs, chairs, tables, plates, delicacies etc.) is chosen carefully after close scrutiny. It acts as an ointment to pacify old wounds of the Muslims! An Iftar Party is like a fisherman’s net whose sole function is entrapment!”
In Tamil Nadu and parts of Kerala, mosques invite people to come for Iftar, and neighbors may donate unique cooked items. Abdul Jaleel, a political activist from the Thrissur district of Kerala, said that people consider it an honor to be allowed to volunteer to arrange the Iftar in their local mosque and look forward to the opportunity.
Azam Khan, a journalist from Mumbai, says that in previous years, if an unknown person appeared to be a Muslim, local people would invite him or her to share the Iftar meal. Today the practice continues in several areas such as Mumbai, Hyderabad, Lucknow and Old Delhi but new colonies don’t follow these kinds of traditions.
(The writer is Delhi based journalist, can be contacted at [email protected])