The aroma of dates, haleem and fried food is missing in the air, so is
missing the ambience of Ramadan, but life goes on -- we fast like we
did back in Dhaka. Many of us still prepare chola, peyaju, beguni and sherbet
for iftar but many of us don't. We drag our drowsy selves from beds to
eat the early morning meal, but it does not feel like observing Ramadan in
Dhaka. Fasting in a foreign country is a different experience altogether.
We fast
for almost 17 hours here in Minnesota. Being without food and drink for 17
hours is not easy but our bodies have somehow adapted well to the rituals of
Ramadan here. Ramadan is so different away from home. A working man or woman
does not have the luxury of going to work at 9 a.m. in the morning.
He or she cannot leave work early either.
Sabina
(not her real name), who works at a McDonald's store in Brooklyn, New York,
starts her shift at 6 o'clock in the morning. "I eat a little
something for sehri, usually some rice and curry. I say my fazr prayer and
leave home soon after to catch the subway train to work," Sabina said.
"It is not easy but you got to do what you got to do."
But
Afsheen Mozammel, who works as a process engineer at Point Medical Corporation
in Indiana, unlike Sabina, skips her sehri because she has to drive to work at
7:30 in the morning. "I only have one meal that is, iftar, during
Ramadan. Other than weekends, I usually have rice-curry and a glass of lassi
for my only meal of the day."
Asked if
she woke up for sehri back in Dhaka, she said, "Of course, I did. But it
was a different time and place. I live alone in Indiana as my husband works in
Michigan and visits me only on weekends. On weekdays, I don't feel like waking
up such early morning to eat sehri all alone."
It
is not only Afsheen who lives on just one meal during Ramadan. Syed Rashed
Zaman, a graduate student at University of Southern Illinois - Edwardsville,
shares an apartment with three other students. Rashed and his friends
break their fast at a neighboring mosque, where some South Asian families
provide iftar for the guests daily. "That is my only proper meal of the
day. I cannot cook much, let alone a traditional iftar," Rashed said.
"But the mosque provides enough food for the guests to take home for
sehri," he added.
Mohammad
Amin, who is a risk analyst by profession, misses having iftar with his family
back home. "I have saved some of my favorite surahs off the Internet to
play before the iftar time," the Minnesota resident said. "It reminds
me of my years in Dhaka during Ramadan when we would turn BTV on to listen to
surah recitations before the Maghreb azaan ."
Eid
shopping is also not part of Ramadan here unless perhaps if you live in a U.S.
city with a large population of Bangladeshis, Indians and Pakistanis. But iftar
parties are common -- it is one way to connect with the people of one's country
during this holy month. Such large gatherings help the immigrant population
forget for a few hours the family and the food that they have left behind.
"On most days, almost twenty of us, that is five to six families of
friends, open our fast together with iftar delicacies gathered from each of our
kitchens," Ananya Rabeya, a mathematics teacher at Lakeside School in
Seattle, Washington, was saying. "It feels wonderful to be able to live in
a place with a substantial Muslim population. But it was different when I was a
student and lived in a city with barely any Muslims. Fasting on those days was
often a solitary affair."
Communal
iftar helps strengthen the bond between members of the American Muslim
community and teaches them the spirit of sharing during Ramadan.
But
sometimes, no matter how hard we try, sitting with family at the dining table and
waiting for a muezzin's call for Maghreb prayer is something missed in every
Bangladeshi household. But life goes on and we accommodate ourselves to this
foreign land in our own ways to welcome another Ramadan.
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