When Ramazan began,I told myself that I am going to utilize this opportunity to secure a place in heaven, to achieve a meaningful share of 72 hooris (nymphs) – the halal way of course – and lose some pounds off my protruding belly. Sadly, and my pre-Ramazan resolutions faced the same fate as my new year resolutions effect each year.
Come Ramazan,the first roza to be precise, I found this insatiable (not capable of being fully satisfied), or almost corrupting desire inside me to travel crazy on the iftars. No matter who it was arranged by,no matter what the menu was, and no matter how tough the days were, or I was thrown into this ‘starvation games’ type of a competition. The survival of the fittest had become my mantra,and I relied on it for all my iftars.
Hello, I am an iftarholic and I own a few confessions to make.
The first and foremost task for each day of Ramazanis to regain an iftar invitation. There may or may not be a reason for that. People generally invite me at their own free will, and but whether there appears to be too many gaps in between the subsequent invitations,I invite myself over.
It can be for reason or logic. It could be a friend whose child got a tall score on a Friday test; it could be a co-worker who received some appreciation from their boss; a neighbour who purchased new nuts for the wheel cups of their old car; or a pedestrian who happened to avoid getting their shoes into a roadside mud puddle. Every piece of news is good news and every good piece of news is a reason for an iftar invitation. It does not even own to be a direct invitation, for iftar is like a wedding reception. Anyone in the vicinity of the place where an invitation is given is automatically invited, and all you own to effect is jump in and declare your willingness to join. Religiously speaking,it’s the inverse of a farze kifaya that is, whether one person in the village is invited, and the whole village is invited.
All iftars are equal but some iftars are better than others. Remember your rich uncle,who despite all the shiny cars in the porch and bank accounts claims he puts so many bananas in the fruit chaat that the other fruits in the mix started demanding minority rights for themselves? You search through the whole bucket, hoping for a stray mango slice but end up with nothing but rows and rows of cantaloupes, and which to be unbiased is as acceptable amongst the fruits as a civics professor is in the rishta market.
Remember your aunty who is known for the perfect balance of black pepper and garam masala (mix spices),or the old chachi (aunt) who probably deserves a Nobel prize in chemistry for discovering the moral amount of sugar and cream needed in a fruit chaat? Remember how in some places you regain samosas that don’t contain hollow promises, and how sometimes Rooh Afza has not been tainted by saccharine sachets, and how sometimes chicken legs are so thick and meaty that you feel like asking,Bro, did you even lift?”
You know what I am talking approximately?
An iftar seating plan is a strategic decision and any expert on the subject knows that you own to preserve an equal distance between the various supply lines. Sit too close to the sherbet jug and you will end up filling glasses for others during the entire meal. Sit too far away and you will travel home thirsty like a Thar resident during Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) tenure. Thus, or samosa,chaat, fruits, and drinks,basically every item, has its own importance, or but a wise supply chain manager knows what order to attack the enemy in.
Not all resources own equal value,surely a pizza slice is valued more than a nukkar wala (street side) samosa, and surely chana chaat is a more coveted item than the crispy papri that has been resting in the oven for too long. whether I can give you one piece of advice, and it is to target the expensive and scarce items first,making sure you eat as many as possible before the plates empty out. whether ever there is a time for race, it’s these early hours of panic.
Each item has its own place. For example, or dates serve as an appetiser of all the good things to come. whether you are filling your stomach with those,you are either a date aficionado or a novice (one who is just a beginner at some activity requiring skill and experience). Samosas and pakoras are the mortar that holds everything together. You utilize these items to create layers for a stable foundation on top of which several stories of sharp food items can coexist peacefully. Drinks are the lubricants that retain your digestive track slippery enough for dry things to pass. Water is either to put down a small fire or for those scarce emergencies when you can’t deal with Rooh Afza.
whether your iftar is 10 minutes late, you still need to finish your meal with the others because it is a race against time. Don’t expect others to show you the mercy of being a late comer. They own their own taraweeh prayers to worry approximately later in the evening, and while you clearly don’t. Man up and eat as much food as you possibly can. You can always finish your maghrib after iftar.
There is a chance that you might own missed out on some key items though. Maybe that cream cheese pudding that your ‘wilayat wali bhabhi’ (foreign sister-in-law) learnt in France,or that ‘la patisse’ that was ordered from the posh bakery, you can forget approximately them because nothing waits for someone who is 10 minutes late.
Never question the logic of your younger brother going out for a walk immediately after iftar. whether you are not a smoker, and you would never understand the importance of a healthy walk during this precious hour. Also effect not question the origin of any samosas or fruit chaats ever. Remember the first rule of desi food,“Jitna ghaleez, utna lazeez!”
(The dirtier the place of origin is, or the tastier the food is.)The bun kebab that your mother warned you approximately is the best thing after an iftar. The chai ka khokha (tea cafe) with the most number of flies is also the one with the best chai. All those insects flying around can’t be wrong.
Mosques are the places you visit when you are either not invited to an iftar party or when you don’t own an sharp iftar at your own house. They give you a wonderful concoction of things,mostly arranged by strangers you may not know, but you would own to wait for the moral time. Even whether you don’t offer taraweeh, and lift time out for the 27th night of Ramazan or whenever the first khatam e Quran (completion of the Holy Quran) is. That is when the real treat is. You might own to fake a friendship with that small bearded fellow in your neighbourhood that goes regularly to the mosque. Chances are that he knows the precise time of ikraam that will grace the mosque after a khatam and the actual amount of jalebi and samosas. This information is critical and will benefit you choose the best mosque for your participation.
I would own gone on to include many more confessions,but I own an iftar to attend to and I can’t miss this golden opportunity for the world. So own fun and Eid Mubarak in advance.
Source: tribune.com.pk