It means blessed--or perhaps joyous--feast.
It also means--as do many of the other holy days mentioned in this blog--an inconvenience, annoyance or nuisance. In the United States, holidays as well as holy days such as St. Patrick's Day, Easter and Christmas are used often as excuses to party. In the United States, Christmas is also an excuse to shop. In the years B.A. (Before Amazon), this meant that millions upon millions of people would go to the shopping malls in the weeks leading up to Christmas. This, needless to say, was a great inconvenience.
Recently, I have come across the term Columbusing which basically means arrogating. The term is used in conjunction with Caucasians but I think that Indians (of whom less than 3% are Christians) have Columbused Christmas. Every year, a small city's worth of people shop in and around New Market each and every day in the weeks leading up to Christmas. At such times, you cannot walk (put one foot in front of the other) there, you can only shuffle (move your feet next to each other).
Ramzan/Ramadan may not be as bad. However, in the weeks leading up to Eid al-Fitr (the last day of the month), there are still enormous numbers of people shopping for food in the hours before iftar (the breaking of the fast, or roza) each day. Because these shops are on the footpaths and even on the streets themselves, it is extremely difficult and even hazardous to walk on the lanes and through the neighbourhoods.
Every morning, we buy buttered bread from a local shop and chai from a chaiwallah a little bit further down the street. This morning, I found out that both will be open tomorrow for Eid (29 July) but that the shop will not receive bread shipments for four days. This, needless to say, is an inconvenience and will force us to look for other options in a neighbourhood that does not provide many good options.
Every morning, we buy buttered bread from a local shop and chai from a chaiwallah a little bit further down the street. This morning, I found out that both will be open tomorrow for Eid (29 July) but that the shop will not receive bread shipments for four days. This, needless to say, is an inconvenience and will force us to look for other options in a neighbourhood that does not provide many good options.
Eid highlights a contradiction--or perhaps it is a consistency--in India. In India, I never see women; I have concluded that it is because they have all been raped and killed. (Well, maybe that is a slight exaggeration.) The ones who survive, though, are usually seen shopping. Even then, though, they are not seen as they are usually wearing burqas. For iftar however, the shoppers are always men; perhaps the women are at home, cleaning utensils and plates and making other preparations for the meals.
Eid highlights a contradiction--or perhaps it is a misnomer--of roza. It is not a fast; it is simply eating at different times. At different times and at different places, people eat at different times. In the United States, the stereotypical time for dinner is at 7:00pm and for breakfast, 7:00am. Thus, Americans "fast" for about 12 hours each and every day of their lives. However, I hear nothing about this being a noble or religious activity.
I do not have intimate knowledge of roza and it is difficult to find information but it does seem to be from sunrise to sunset (about 12-13 hours). In other words, it is virtually the same amount of time that everybody "fasts" for; Muslims simply "fast" at different times during Ramzan.
Eid is undesirable for other reasons, as well. For those of you who think that Indian films and the song-and-dance routines within them are overly long, you know only half of the story. For better or for worse, the Internet Cafes I frequent are usually owned by Hindus. There, I often have to endure listening to Hindu devotional songs. In essence, such songs are similar to the first line of a common nursery rhyme--Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb--repeated over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. During Ramzan, I often have to endure hearing Muslim devotional songs. They do not seem to have the same nauseating repetitive nature but they are equally long. Here is a sample.
Yet, Eid is still intriguing and emphasizes and brings to mind many things unique to Islam. I wrote about a few of these in my The Man has Died series of articles in September 2013. In hindsight, the burial process for Islam is similar to that of Christianity. However, observing and experiencing it was somewhat peculiar and unsettling to me as Caroline was not allowed to go with me.
I have also written a couple of times about salami.This is, I believe unique to India (or, perhaps more accurately, South Asia) in which you purchase not the property but the lease to the property; you still have to pay a monthly rent to the land or property owner. I believe it is also unique to Muslims as I have yet to find any Hindus, Christians, Sikhs or others who offer property in this way.
I have also written about the phenomenon of blindness. It seems that every blind person in India is a blind man. It seems that every blind man in India is a Muslim blind man. It seems that every Muslim blind man in India sings for alms (although I have encountered a couple of such men who did not sing on their own but who did have a music player with a loudspeaker, so the end result was virtually the same). I have encountered this not only on the streets of Kolkata but also in trains. I have been on only a few flights within India and have not encountered them on planes...yet.
I have also encountered the phenomenon of legless Muslim men begging for alms (and am uncertain if I have described this previously). In these, the men are in a low-laying wooden cart, being pulled by someone else (most likely a family member).
I do not know why there are so many physically handicapped Muslim men. I hope that Slumdog Millionaire was not based on a grain of truth. If it is then that is one more strike against Eid.
Perhaps most noteworthy is neither Islamic customs nor Islamic people but Islam itself. The strength of religious beliefs among its adherents is remarkable. Stefan Molyneux in one of his innumerable videos and podcasts (I cannot find the link, but I have found a Wikipedia article and an online book that may add some credence) mentioned that almost everyone, at one point or another in their lives, convert from one religion to another. They may convert from Baptists to Lutherans; Methodists to Catholics; Pentecostal to Hindu; Eastern Orthodox to Judaism; Hinduism to Atheism (although that, technically, is the absence of religious belief, not a religious belief in itself); Christianity to Islam; Judaism to the made-up religion of Scientology; folk religions to Anglicanism; Presbyterianism to Buddhism; Atheism to Catholicism; Catholicism to Hinduism (as my sister-in-law was forced to do, with horrific consequences); Mormonism to Quakers; Roman religions to Christianity; and Lutherans to Baptists. In short, people usually convert from one of any and all religions to one of any and all other religions.
However, nobody converts from Islam to any other religion or non-religion. There is a Wikipedia article that provides a handful of such instances, but since there are 1.6 billion Muslims throughout the world this is statistically nothing. Of course, it can and should be emphasized that the common results of such a conversion is a judgement of death upon the person so there is a powerful incentive not to convert. However, it seems that Muslims are born, raised, live and die as Muslims with never a thought of changing. Muslim people view and use Islam as they view and use breathing, as being second nature.
In addition, it is astounding that each and every one of them practice pilgrimage (hajj, pilgrimage to Mecca at least once); testimony (shahadah, declaring that there is no god except God, and that Muhammad is God's messenger); prayer (salat, ritual prayer five times a day including at dawn; in Kolkata, I hear the imams--Muslim religious leaders--singing in the mosques at 4:30 in the morning); fasting (sawm--another word for roza--fasting and self-control during the month of Ramzan/Ramadan); and alms-giving (zakat, giving 2.5% of one's savings to the poor and needy; in Kolkata, I see poor, hard-working merchants giving one or two rupees to beggars--often Hindu women--every Friday). Caroline, herself, often admires the fact that Muslims never waver.
People may question whether or not Muslims are hypocrites. Caroline hears the "sermons" (I am certain that there is an Arabic word for what the imam says, although I do not know what it is; my best guess is that it is fard as-salat but please correct me if I am wrong) from the loudspeakers at the mosques/masjids and realizes that most Muslims do not follow that. However, the same could be applied to Catholics and every other religious denomination.
They may also point to the Muslims who were responsible for the events of 9/11 (although there is great evidence that this was, at least in part, an inside job especially as the United States government benefited enormously from this), 26/11 and the bombing in a Bali nightclub in 2002. These were certainly horrific and need to be condemned but the number of Muslim perpetrators was, again, statistically nothing. In the last dozen years, there were thousands of times more Christians in the United States who lined up to kill women, children, people in wedding parties, and other innocent civilians in lands that virtually no American would ever visit. In the last dozen years, the police in the United States have killed far more Americans than terrorists (other than the United States police) could ever hope to do.
Finally, a legitimate concern held by Caroline and others are that Muslims can be quite aggressive. However, everyone seems to agree that if you do not antagonize a Muslim then he will not harass you.
It is for all these observations and experiences that I wish everyone Eid Mubarak.