Changing scenario during Ramadan and Eid

Half way through the Ramadan employees of various private and government organisations take to the streets or other kinds of protest marches demanding "festival bonus." Some of them will get it and some will not. The whole objective is to lay your hands on some extra cash to make purchases of dresses and fancy goods, most of which one could do without. If there is a sick person in the family requiring serious medical aid even that will be put in abeyance until the Eid is over. By that time however there will be no cash left. There are also those who would even borrow money to "celebrate Eid." If one was to take a survey of the purchases going on frantically in the city shopping malls one would be simply aghast with the nature and pattern of shops selling various merchandise and the purchases being made by the various categories of customers. The other day just out of curiosity I had a brief visit to one of the better known and popular shopping malls recently opened. I briefly stopped at a variety of shops, the one that attracted my attention, was a toy shop where the individual items, all imported, were selling at prices ranging between Tk 600 and 10,000. I asked the salesman about the state of business. He promptly responded by saying "business was good." Also out in these shopping malls you readily come across buyers belonging to the growing class of " newly rich". With this class of people you can readily associate a kind of arrogance and aggressiveness, which you seldom come across with others less fortunate.

There is yet another class of wealthy people who have made it into a routine to visit neighbouring foreign cities like Bangkok, Calcutta or Kathmandu or even domestic Cox's Bazaar to spend the few days of Eid vacation away from the humdrum of the chaotic city life.

As the Eid draws near, you also come across all kinds of city dwellers mostly belonging to the middle, lower middle class and the fixed income groups getting ready to go to their village homes by bus, trains and launches. Here also too many high profiled and serious "inter ministerial committee meetings are held year after year and all kinds of promises made to streamline the sale of tickets and regularise the various fares charged for different routes". Yet the situation never improves for better.

A similar dismal scenario also emerges during the Ramadan and Eid season on the streets of the capital. The perennial traffic jam becomes twice more critical with the "sudden" crowding of rickshaws on the main city streets surrounding, particularly, the shopping centers The DCC as usual comes up with very strong promises to clear the streets of thousands of illegal/unlicensed rickshaws. In reality what you come to see is that only a few hundreds are hauled up and that too are sent off to the selected constituencies in the village homes of our Lawmakers to strengthen their political base.

Ramadan and Eid have also been marked with slowing down of the pace of work at offices and other statutory establishments mostly run by government. First the normal working hours are reduced for the entire month. Second employees themselves " go slow" on all sorts of excuses. Third, comes the Eid holidays. Routinely on the day prior to the official holidays most of the employees will simply disappear. Finally, most of them would return to work way beyond the days of authorised leave. No one perhaps would ever be questioned; no one reprimanded. No one is concerned about this emerging culture resulting into loss of thousands of productive hours, which nations like hours can ill afford.

The entire Ramadan is full of iftar parties. These "parties" follow a specific pattern. They serve as occasions for exchanging greetings and pleasantries amongst "like minded people" or platforms for various political parties to discuss various party agenda.

All this, made and make me thinking. What are we? Are we half religious, half honest, half of this and half of that? The growing culture is not only decadent but also despicable. May God help us!!

Shamsher Chowdhury is a freelance writer