Eid Mubarak 2021

As Eid sets a somber visitation on India this year, my mind travels back to some beautiful memories growing up as a young boy in a simple India where humanity trumped superficial differences. My class-mates, Moosa and Osman would bring “Mittai” to school and share with their favorite friends (I remain one still). Basith Uncle (my uncle’s friend) would visit us and deliver sweets to my grandparents, and I would be among the first to taste the Halwa. Naseer Uncle (my mother’s close friend) would visit to greet “Jaya Sister” and would take the kids for a masala dosa. The highlight one year was an Eid party at the palatial home of my friend Farook Sait, and it was the sort of wealth that someone like me from a lower middle-class home would be dazzled by.

Brigade Road, Commercial Street, Avenue Road would all be so festive, and no one cared who was Muslim or who was Hindu or who was Christian. Everyone wished everyone else “Eid Mubarak”, and there was never any barrier between people. Humans just cared for one another. The same happened on Diwali or Christmas.

Now, the India of our past seems at loggerheads with the pluralism that has defined that civilization for millennia – but I was heartened from the many Eid greetings that I received today, and the best of them all from Rukhshana Basith Lakshman, who simply said “Pray for India, as we ache over the fact that more shrouds are sold on Eid than new clothes.” This too shall pass. Eid Mubarak to all.

– Venkat

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