I don’t get these iftar/dinner parties. Notice I have put a slash in between iftar and dinner but we all know that they are more like iftar AND dinner parties. People reach your place just before its time to break their fast and leave as soon as they have had dinner, and all of this takes place within two hours. I don’t get it.
Ramzan is supposed to be about control, sacrifice, and self-restriction. When it says that we must abstain from eating food, it is so we can learn self-control and learn how to manage our hunger. It does not mean that we have pakoras and dahi barays and cholays and fruit chat and chicken patties and samosas and veggie roles and daal and chanay and roohafzah for iftar and then have chicken karahi and biryani and behari kabab and sashlik and quorma and nihari and naan and parathas for dinner and then parathas and kababs and omelets and cereal and fried eggs and toast and butter and balai and phainnis for sehri. I am pretty sure that if one were to calculate all the food that one consumes on a normal “roza,” it will be at least fifty percent more than what that same person would consume on a normal day. It would be common sense to think that people would lose weight during Ramzan because they are going hungry for most of the day, but actually, most people end up gaining weight during this holy month. The reason: they have a hearty iftar, a hearty dinner, and a hearty sehri, all within the span of a few hours and this more than amply covers and exceeds their daily calorie intake.
The worst are the people who only pretend that they are actually following the true meaning of Ramzan. We had an iftar/dinner (notice the slash again) party at our place the other day and it was the same deal: various fried and fattening food items for iftar and forty-five minutes after the respected rozaydaars had had their fill of iftar, dinner was served with a serving of different dinner dishes. It was a family affair, so I called out to one of my cousins (second cousin from marriage [his not mine] thrice removed) and told him to come eat.
“Nahi yaar,” he made a disgusting face at me while rubbing his stomach. “I just had too much iftari and I am completely full. I cannot eat right now. This is not how I usually am during Ramzan. At home, I don’t have iftar, I have dinner straightaway. But today is different, as I couldn’t resist all the fried and fattening food items.”
He actually didn’t really say the last line, but I imagined that that’s what he was trying to tell me.
I walked away thinking wow, this guy is really upholding the spirit of Ramzan. Now why couldn’t everybody be like him? Why do we have to have three large meals a day in an abnormal way, when we can easily have two? This is the way to fast and not the way…
I was unable to finish my thoughts, as just a few minutes later, I saw that same cousin (second cousin from marriage [his not mine] thrice removed) of mine stuffing behari kababs down his throat and up his nostrils. He was really packing it up. Poor guy. He must be used to having his dinner instead of his iftar at this time.
