First Roja

Yesterday was the first day of ramadan. That makes the first roja (fasting). This whole month of fasting will culminate on Eid-il-fitr, another long holiday :-) :-) I still don't know where to spend the holiday, out of the country or save and stay here. In some ways, Ramadan is similar to Lent.

I love this month mainly 1)the shortened office hours, this time it's only up to 430pm, so that the people can go home and break their fast at home with their family, and 2)the traditional iftar food.

Here in Bangladesh, being a Muslim country, Ramadan is observe religiously. Most of the smallscale food/tea/cigarette stalls or shops are close until the sunset. Or, if they choose to open and do business, their stalls/doors are covered with fabrics/curtains to hide them from public eyes. They do so as respect to those who are fasting.
And when the Iftar time is near, you will see small scale vendors of Iftar food in most street corners. All the big restaurants and fastfoods have their Iftar meal and iftar boxes to offer. Usually, the offerings are Iftar meal-cum-dinner. And it's like a party with food flowing :-)

The staple iftar items are mostly fried foods, Piyaju (made of pulse, onion, and pulse powder), Beguni (made of eggplant and pulse powder), Jilapi, Muri (puffed crunchy rice grains, usually spiced with onion, garlic, chilli and other iftar items), Haleem, dates, samosas, Dal Puri (a type of lentil based pastry), Chola (cooked chickpeas), fish kabab, mughlai paratha, pitha, traditional Bengali sweets and different types of fruits mostly grapes, oranges & mangoes. Drinks such as Rooh Afza and lemon sharbat are common on iftar tables across the country.

Among the regular food items, my favorites are the Haleem and the Kashmiri sharbot. Ramadan for me is having the satisfaction & happiness of eating haleem either with rice or jilapi and drinking Kashmiri sharbot. So , whenever ramadan comes, one tummy is singing with glee!

This is my 4th time to celebrate the month of Ramadan here and yet, this is my first time to see the moon of the 1st roja.


I'm so happy! But then, still, nothing beats my 1st experience of the ramadan here way back 2008.

During Ramadan, all shops are open until the wee hours as this is the time when everyone are buying new things, clothes and what-nots for the eid. It's like Christmas rush. But no one inform me that during the iftar time, the shops will be close for few minutes and then open again after the iftar. Not knowing this, I decided to do my grocery before the Iftar time as we are off from the office early. I was in the grocery, walking and checking each aisles, when suddenly I notice, no one is around anymore. Not a single customer nor sales person...scared, it's like a zombie land, i decided to walk towards the counter to pay my grocery, and that's when I saw all the sales staff, sitting on the floor, about to partake their Iftar meal. They were surprised to see me also and invited me to join them. Some experience I will never forget.