We live in amazing times

Scarcely had I finished recounting our 2-Eed history in an earlier post, when along came the first 3-Eed occasion. Imagine. Peshawar and Karachi will now celebrate Eed 2 days apart ... with parts of the country observing it in the middle, too. Wow! So, we've pretty much had a 5-day Eed Festival, if we start with the Bohris, who celebrate all the religious occasions 2 days before the rest of the Muslims in this part of the world. Well, to be fair, from their point of view everyone else is 2 days late! (The jury is still out on whether they'll get zapped two days before everyone else, come Doomsday.)

Work - such as it is during Ramzan - came to a grinding halt just before Noon on Friday the 20th, in Lahore (which I happened to be visiting), as people started getting ready for the Jum'ah Prayers (it was the Al Vida' Jum'ah ... the last Friday of Ramzan). Many of them were trying to reach the Badshaahi Masjid to join the large congregation before traffic got heavy. Then there was a weekend, followed by the ill-timed Monday-Wednesday holiday. Eed was expected to be on Tuesday, but the traditional Eed+2 days have now been replaced by the 3-day vacation starting a day earlier, giving out-of-station people time to reach home before Eed.

Of course, as luck and stupidity would have it, Eed has now fallen on Wednesday for most of us. So Thursday is a holiday, too. On Friday the 27th, as often happens in such circs, many people will phone in sick - a few will actually be suffering from the after-effects of over-eating and having their mealtimes disrupted again after Ramzan. Admittedly, the more decent (and the gutless) will dodder in, slightly late, and spend the better part of the morning holding a hugathon, calling up a few friends and then getting up around noon to prepare for prayers. Back for a couple of hours, after a leisurely post-prayer lunch, and they too are away for the weekend again!

But the decent are in a minority, anyway. For the majority, after their departure on the 20th, their first day in office will be on the 30th and their first day at work will be the 31st . You really can't expect people back in unfamiliar work suroundings to get in the groove on Day 1, can you? Thank Almighty Allah that we are a rich country and can afford such 11-day breaks ...

A serious question is How (or even Why) does the owner of a small-to-medium business pay a workforce that's been on half-speed for 15 days, on holiday for the rest of the month, and has obviously fallen short of its deadlines and has caused financial losses connected with this idiotic behaviour? Why should the burden of an individual's beliefs fall on anyone but him (or on the State, if it officially subscribes to the philosophy)? Do Muslims in the USA or UK get half-days off? Or do they not fast? Are there any Hadeeses that support this half-day tradition? The Qur'an certainly does not.

The principal of Fasting - I imagine - is to try and get through a normal day, with the additional hardship of shunning all temptations. Where are the temptations if you spend your time sleeping all morning at your desk - The Sehri Süstee Syndrome - and all afternoon at home? Reminds me of Mirza sahab:

Saamané khor-o-khaab kahaañ say laaooñ?
Aaraam kay asbaab kahaañ say laaooñ?
Rozah mera eemaan hae, Ghalib, laykin ...
Khaskhaana-o-barfaab kahaañ say laaoñ?

Anyway, coming back to the moonsighting disasters, let me end on a more cheerful note. We are not the only Muslim country to mess things up. The grand-daddy of them all, good old Soddy Arabia, has had it's share of faux pas this year, in mixing up heavenly bodies (and I am not referring to Angelina's).