The Aura of Ramzaan

Friends ask what it feels like to be back in Hyderabad.  And my consistent response "absolutely loving it". Typical next question.... "really, that much?" 

While I have my personal reasons, family, friends, work....... I try hard to help them understand  how, a significant part of the reason is that 'it's home, it's the feel......it's the air I breath in Hyderabad' .

And right now, what says it better than the air of Ramzan. It struck me the other day when I was telling Diksha how the 'adhan', the daily call to prayer (and I hear it from three mosques around my house) is a spirit uplifting moment each time. 

That's one of the minarets I can see from home ( the pigeons were a lucky moment. as I stepped out with my phone just now :)

And now with Ramzan, we have the 'taraweeh', which is their special evening call to prayer added in. The other day I attended an event which carried a moment that will stay with me for a long time to come (maybe forever). The chief guest was in the middle of his speech when the taraweeh started, and he just stopped.....almost mid sentence, and sat back till it finished. The entire audience, of well over a hundred, in pin drop silence, maybe listening like they've never heard before.  The collective energy it generated was just so sublime and beautiful. And when it ended he restarts with 'how beautiful that was'.  It really was. The taraweeh,  as also his gesture.

Last week, a friend dropped by from Singapore . And I'm like 'what brings you to Hyd', and he went 'came to eat haleem'. I'm like 'tell seriously' and he's like 'seriously.....it was haleem' and I realized he meant it. Such is the draw of Ramzan for a true blood Hyderabadi :)

Yesterday I'm at my fruit and veg shop and I see Mohammed Mehtaab and Dilip Kumar fully focused on cutting so many fruits, and I got curious. Mehtaab said, a lot of their customers just come and give thousand rupees, and say distribute fruits in the masjid, and it happens through the day. I was quite amazed....I asked, how many fruits do you give in one masjid, and he said 'नहीं madam , यहां तीन मस्ज़िद हैं , सब में बांटते हैं " (there are three masjids here and we give in all of them). Zakat al-fitr is such a deeply ingrained concept in Islam, charity.....giving to the poor. It's beautiful.

I don't even want to go into how all we hear when people talk Islam or muslim, is fundamentalism and jihad and talaq. Those are the loudest and ugliest voices. Can we listen to the adhan and taraweeh and zikat. What are we hearing?

Gratitude and Humility are such a significant part of the month of Ramadan. If, like Jayesh (the chief guest) we could connect into the depth and beauty of the teachings, I think we'd be surely more than a notch better individuals for it.