Eid Mubarak

A happy belated "Eid Mubarak" to those of you who celebrated. DSL's been down for a few days, as Internet Guru couldn't come by over the holiday. Apologies for the fall-off in posts.



Anyway, on to the recently concluded festivity. Eid ul-Fitr is the three-day festival that concludes the month-long Ramzan fast. People buy new clothes, schmooze and eat with friends and family, and give money (Eidi) to their kids and the children they know. Adults also sometimes exchange gifts, and here it's customary to give a little extra money to household staff or to people who do work for you, like the sweeper or garbage collector. In Pakistan, women and girls put mendhi (henna) on their hands and usually dress up with lots of colorful bangles (as in 24+ per arm). Eid shopping in The Lovely City during the last days of Ramzan is a sight to behold--not unlike the frenzy of last-minute Christmas shopping in the U.S., though in addition to department stores and stand-alone shops, there's the bazaar here, which is a beehive of activity on the most sedate of days.



Roomie and I set out after iftari one evening about a week before the holiday, and the whole area around the main shopping districts was lit up like a carnival. Big awnings of white lights cascading down from the tops of department stores, restaurants, and shops made the street look like a palace. Everyone was out and about after breaking their fast—shopping for gifts, clothes, bangles, and just enjoying the holiday bustle. The whole street in front of our favorite grocerystore was choked with long tables so full of bangles that there were no gaps between the shoe-boxed sized boxes of glittering jewelry. Every possible color was represented: black, dark red, bright red, pink, all shades of green and blue, gold, silver, with and without glitter. They were looped together on ropes like wreaths of garlic within each box. I loved looking at all the colors, even though various flying bugs continually darted in small clouds around the bare electric bulbs and I had to keep batting them away. We gazed and fingered bangles, asking “teen inch hai?” (Are there three-inch (size)?) Not a chance—I seem to have the biggest hand-spread in all of Pakistan. (The children’s ones were so tiny!)

We headed on to the bazaar and immediately sank into the morass of holiday traffic going over the bridge into the older part of the city. Once at the bazaar we found harried-looking traffic cops in yellow reflective vests trying to maintain some orderly flow—hard enough on an average day! We charged into the bazaar and headed straight to Fabulous Tailor--recommended by a colleague--to pay him half the cost of our Eid suits, final amount due at pick-up. Then it was off to find jewelry. We happened to run into a couple of fellow teachers from Our School, so we all trooped laughingly to the Main Bangle Source to try our luck.

The upstairs portion of Main Bangle Source is a tiny necklace and hair-clip seller about the size of 3 phone-booths stuck together, and then downstairs in the basement, bangle nirvana. (The place was so crowded I literally got stuck, squashed between two ladies trying to get to the counter. The narrow staircase down to the basement was itself so tiny and packed I nearly tripped on Roomie’s dupatta, and then almost grazed the crotch of an ascending salesman.) Downstairs, four or five salesmen trotted behind a long counter that curved around three sides of the tiny store, tossing rolls of bangles to one another as women gestured and called out the colors they wanted. Rolls of glittering bangles lined the walls from counter-height up to the ceiling. They’re packaged by the dozen, and then the sellers unwrap the plastic and put stacks of them around a piece of cardboard, like a spool of curling ribbon. The effect is a wall full of glittering, bright spools, some solid all the way up their 3-4 –inches, most with bands of 4 different colors on a roll. Fancier bangles with baubles on them hung from counter-top stands. There were plain, simple with glitter, metal bangles hammered to reflect the light, wide ones with metal filagree and glass gems, and of course, every different color.

There was, literally, barely enough room to move inside—especially in the back. This place did have quite a few in my size, from simple bangles in various colors, to elaborate red-and-gold-colored ones with little bells and baubles hanging off. I gestured and asked for my size and preferred colors in a combination of English and tentative Urdu: “yeh?” (this?) “Yevala” (this one), lal hai? (is there red?), and Small size? Is there big size? Roomie and Witty T.A. kept having to help me get them on by squeezing my hand into a pincher just below the knuckles, which we all laughed about good-naturedly. “Just use lotion—that’s what we do,” they told me. After trying on a bunch my hands were red but I figured out my size: 2.10. “It can hurt,” said Witty T.A. with a smile, “but if you want to wear bangles, you have to bear it.”



This was only the first example this holiday of how I'm learning to suffer for beauty here--after so many years of steadfast refusal to do so!


Anyhoo. Bangles are typically sold by the dozen—usually about Rs 150/doz. (about $2.50) for a good price (esp. around this time when prices go up), and for my size, since it’s harder to find, I paid Rs 200. After lengthy pondering, choosing, and negotiations we all got several sets to go with various holiday and work outfits. I bought sets of turqoise, violet blue, light blue, one mango-yellow, an orange set, some hot pink ones and some olive green ones. A respectable showing, and now I have bangles to go with most of my work clothes too. Since I brought neither jewelry nor my regular clothing from home, that works out pretty well.



We also made a visit to Roomie's favorite shoe store to buy some Eid gifts for her cousins, who live in TLC. Now that was madness. The place was packed, and the salesmen were calling out desired sizes and colors, bucket-brigade style (green, size six! green, size six! green, size six!), until some poor soul in the stock room hurled them out the door, over the customers' heads, and into the waiting salesman's arms. (Yes, the sales staff were all guys.) Favorite Shoe Store was the site of my second lesson in suffering for beauty while in Pakistan--since I couldn't find any low-heeled chappals to go with my Eid suit, I picked out some outrageously high black heels with rhinestones on them. I practically have to lock my knees to walk in them properly, and they're extremely cute, which delighted me. Lord, I'm becoming such a girly girl over here.



Hmm. Blogger doesn't seem to be uploading photos today. I'll post them another time.



The actual holiday itself didn't start until Sunday (well, Saturday night), even though just about every other Muslim on Earth was already celebrating. In fact, Roomie's family in the U.S. actually celebrated the day before we did. Since they're behind us by quite a few hours in terms of the time zone, it was strange to think that, in a sense, where they were it was simultaneously yesterday and tomorrow (Eid). Anyway, Eid doesn't officially start until the new moon is sighted (hence the discrepancies). While we were out getting our stuff a few people told us that Chand Raat, sort of Eid Eve, would be that night instead of the following one, so we hurried home to get everything ready, only to turn on local news and discover the headline scrolling at the bottom of the screen: “Breaking news: moon not sighted.”

The newscasters were conducting interviews with correspondents in various Pakistani cities, all of whom confirmed the same message. Though their Urdu was beyond me, I could just imagine the conversations:


“Hassan, has the moon been sighted tonight in Karachi?”
“No, Zia, there is no moon tonight. Is there a moon visible in Lahore?”
“No, no moon here.”
“I see, so it seems there is no Chand Raat tonight.”
“No, no, not without a moon sighting, and there’s no moon in Lahore.”
“I see. No moon in Karachi either.”
“Right. No moon. So, Latif, is there a moon in Islamabad?”
“No, no moon here.”


In a few hours we went from a comparatively relaxed pace of preparation to a frenzy of activity, and back to near-lethargy and relief. I suppose doing this on a regular/annual basis creates some anxiety but also a fun, frenetic sense of anticipation.



Well folks, I must scurry off to bed and beat my latest cold into submission. Yes, this is my second cold in two weeks. God bless a new school year.