The boring recount of a (hot) Eid

Eid dress Everyone is either talking about it excitedly or condemning the excitement over something so worldly so I thought this issue is big enough to get the first call. I don't condemn others for having so many and so many Eid dresses (but I don't recall ever having more than two, which itself is a rare occurrence), but I didn't have any this year. Don't get me wrong, there is no humbleness involved, it was merely the fact that assignments, universities, Ramadan and planning for bd has kept my nerves so preoccupied, didn't have anything left for an Eid dress. Yesterday got a panic attack after realising I had to wear something on Eid! I could always wear a sari but then I couldn't think of torturing my self by being wrapped in so many layers plus the abaya in this suffocating heat. Ma landed on the scene to rescue me (read traumatise me) and dug up a maroon salwar kamij with heavy golden work all over it. That reminds me of bridal dress so I only wore that a few occatios so far. My mum thinks its a shame that I never wear those gorgeous clothes and prefer to attire in boring, uninteresting bura colours. hahaha. So, my mother won and I decided upon wearing that heavy salwar kamij of heavy work.

Night before my bioinformatics assignment was due at 12 at night. I came back from uni only to find the house at a chaotic state--a yelling mother and a bewildered sister and father. That meant my mother has already embarked on her cooking adventure and those two poor souls were trying to help her out. Sadly, that wasn't working out too well as my sis was proved inadequate in washing potatoes, my dad burnt the precious meat and the chotpoti refused to get boiled. I threw my bag at a corner and extended my hands in charity. Helped as much as I could while constantly worrying about the assignment I had to submit in couple of hours...
With all those chaos around us the iftar time approached... then it hit me... I just got few more minutes left for forgiveness and acceptance... Baba called everyone for pre-Iftar dua like every other day and started talking about the significance of the moment... he reminded us of the hadith of the Prophet where he cursed those who got Ramadan but couldn't have his sins forgiven by Allah... Baba reminded us, we spent all these Ramadan time asking for forgiveness but we can never be sure of whether we got it or not. It does not take Allah all 30 days to forgive a person, it does not take us to pray for hours and hours to be forgiven. All that is needed is our pure repentence and Allah's mercy... unconditional mercy... it can happen in hours and days but it can also happen in moments. So if we are lucky, we can have forgiveness in these few moments left...Baba led the dua like every other day but it was different. It was full of tears and emotions and true repentance and humility... I cried like I haven't cried in ages, in entire Ramadan. I cried my heart and soul out... And it felt good... just yesterday I was in a sea of despair and hours after that I knew Allah's mercy is more than enough for me... inshallah he has accepted 5 tearful repenting souls...
After that tearful Iftar it was all work and work again. Cleaning up the house... tiding up, cooking... no end to all that. Finally escaped from all those works and returned to my assignment. Finished the assignment and uploaded on the net at past 11.30. The whole house was sleeping by then. When I finally went to bed it was exactly 1.37 am. I did not know howI was going to get up in the morning...

the big day My fear was proved right... I was so dead in my sleep that I couldn't hear anything until lamzity screamed in my ears... "apuni, fojorer shomoi ar 10 minute ache!" Then I tried to jump straight on my bed but my poor over-worked body was protesting. Still managed to drag myself to the shower. It was 6 o clockish by then. Apparantly we were supposed to start from home at 6 am to make it on time to the Eid prayer. But everyone was sort of dead. 5 minutes per head was the allocated time, everyone sort of kept in time. I had to iron my clothes in that chaos so got a lot of jharis for procrastinating. I tried to bring some decency in my messy room. Then dressing up, a bit of eye liner or mashcara, perfecting the bend of the hijab, finding matching jewellery took up some time. Then we had the first part of our family tradition. Leaving us girls to dressing up, the boys of the family, ie Baba and bhaiun have already set out the table. Five of us went, sat around the same table and broke our month long fast together, with a date. Then came ma's scrumtuous sweet dishes. Everyone had something. I just love this tradition of us of having the eid breakfast together! By then it was 6.30 and we knew we really needed to get out of the house to get the eid prayer at 7.30. In that hurry hurry situation we totally forgot to perform the second part of our tradition that I wait every year for. We didn't have it this year, I think this is the first time it happened so in my 19 years of life! Okay this is how it goes: Ma puts on perfume on everyone... Baba, bhaiun, lamzity, me and herself. Then we all hug each other ie do kolakoli. Its a wonderful way to start the Eid day, holding your dear ones closest to you. We always enjoy how our mummy and daddy blush and do kolakoli with each other. lolz. This is the only time we get to see them in that romantic proximity. :P.
Rest of the day involved heat and more heat. Body heat, temper-heat, sunny-heat, stuffy-heat. We raced towards the car 60 minutes till the Eid prayer at Bicentennial park. I love praying there. Those of you who go there already know about the atmosphere, for those who don't let me elaborate... As you get out of motor way, you will be stuck in long lines of traffic--cars with bearded men and hijab-ed women drivers and passengers. Soon you and fellow drivers will become frustrated trying to find a driving spot! Afterall, an odd five thousand people pray there... When you finally manage to find a driving spot 10 miles away from the prayer spot, because a lot of Muslim apparantly had been camping there since last night, you walk to the praying spot. I always love that walk because as you walk through the well maintained park, you see Muslim sisters and brothers walking down towards the praying area from all different directions. As you get closer, you hear that... the magnificent melodious taqbir... "Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, La Ilaha illallahu wallahu akbar wallahu akbar wa lillahil hamd"... The imam reciting that aloud and 5 thousand Muslims in the park joining him in unison. When you finally see the disciplined rows of Muslims, you are bound to get all emotional. The Muslim brothers at the front and sisters at the back standing in prayer in front of the Lord of the Universe on the green grass, under the blue sky, miles away from any Muslim majority part of the world. If you are there you can feel Allah's rahmah pouring down in the small portion of the park. Last time I went there, my lacrimal glands leaked right when I went to sujud... the feelings was too spiritual and beautiful.
So this year we intended to pray there again. We campaigned a lot and got at least twenty odd families to go there to pray. Me living in the *mountains* usually need 30 mins to get to bicentennial park, just to be safe, we started an hour ago. And, as it had to be yesterday, some road blocked hence all the office going cars were right on the motorway and we were literally moving an inch a minute. I have never seen it like that--cars dead stop on motor way! I thought the speed limit was supposed to be 110 km/h! Don't think it was even 110 cm/minute. It was a disaster and soon we knew we were never gonna make it to bicentennial park. The sun was already up (later on heard about the heat experienced in the park), the air was getting hot, so was our temper. Couldn't imagine missing Eid prayer for traffic jam! That doesn't happen even in BD. Specially its wajib on baba and bhaia... they were getting extremely annoyed at the road, traffic and us (coz we took so long in shajuguju *sigh*). We finally decided to give up our hope and change routs to pray at Sefton as there is a jamat at 8 am there. Its ironical, I was campaigning specifically against praying in Sefton because of the Bangali majority and so unislamic nationalistic attitude among people... hm.. it all fires back eh? Bhaia took us through the inside roads, avoiding all motorways and main roads. We finally managed to park the car and get out of that at exactly 7.59 (I checked the time) and caught up with the jamat right when they started taqbir. Phew!
Finished prayer and started our voyage towards people's house. Went to Saifuddin Uncle's place, poor Sasan was revising his HSC notes... he had an exam both yesterday and today! We dragged Orpa and her mum out of their bed (ie they were still sleeping when we went there). Humayun uncle came out in his sando genji to open the door--no one expected us that early! Ridi sounded relieved she didnt have any exam on Eid day. Oh Nusrat... oh that cutee... went to Oli uncle's hous, Nusrat got very inspired by Rumana's wedding sari and got her parents to get her a red sari. Helped the girl get in bridal dress! Shah Jamal aunty... poor aunty is suffering a lot. And the brother of Farouq uncle... he is only 25. A few months ago, all of a sudden, he had some fever, the virus caused brain damaged and now he is in hospital bed, in coma, unable to respond to anything. Doctor's said the situation probably will never improve. The worse thing is, he got married a few months ago and his wife is several months pregnant...

At this point I took a break... I don't know what else to write... this couple amaze me... I don't know how people cope with tests so difficult... and me, I here complain about my "self-created-bruises"? Huh, talk about sadistic romanticism! Allah, make me a stronger person, help me learn from these things...

Anyway, got vising few other houses, Ash apu and Flynn's house was in the list. Poor Snowman and daggy were tired and sleepy, even sleeping, we dragged them up! Ash apu was so tired she had to lie down in bed and talk to us. Flynn was being all responsible, taking care of the kitchen. Aunty notified us about her generous help in the kitchen, in cooking that date-cake, buter halua and all. I can't believe I made her hand-write that long recipe of date-cake! We stayed there for the longest--two hours or so and planned for the upcoming party of Bangladesh-going girls. The venue is currently settled to be at our *mountain*. :P. Ash apu also gave me some valuable tips about shopping in bd for "full sleeve kamij".
Our family Eid was mostly in the car. Because we live so far away from everyone else (or is it them who live far away?) the journey was long. There we were five of us packed in our toyota camry. Us three siblings at the back, parents at the front. Songs were sang, games played. We teased Lamzity a lot coz the back seats seemed to be shrinking which is in fact her continuous ruthless expansion--vertical and horizontal...

Its yesterday I realised again, we are pretty close as family. I can see our bond is getting interfered by that four letter obscene word "b-u-s-y". Since me and bro started uni and job, we hardly have our dinners together. This is probably the last time we had our Eid together, even yesterday bro was saying how he needed to spend the day with brothers from uni. I know we will be spending next Eid in Bangladesh inshallah, without Baba (first time ever). Lots of first-time-evers will come and things will change. I was reading Eccentric sis's blog and I knew I will be reminiscining my past-Eids like that may be next Eid... or the Eid after. But that will happen. I knew that so I tried to enjoy every moment, every fight, every heat (and the underlying cool breeze which can only be felt) with my family members yesterday. And I did.