Our Holy Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) was coming back from an Eid congregation when on the way he (PBUH) came across a small child who, while standing all alone on the roadside, sobbed and sniveled loudly. The Prophet (PBUH) went to him and asked the reason for wailing. The child narrated his dreadful account while shedding tears. He said he was an orphan and, as it was Eid day, he did not have parents who could buy him new clothes to wear or toys to play. The Prophet (PBUH) took him along to his place and got him new clothes and toys to play.

Though this is a small emotional anecdote, it certainly reflects what our religion preaches about commemorating the religious days bestowed upon us by the Almighty. Eid is one day that is meant to enjoy and shed the gloominess one passes through during the year. The day is meant to rejoice but we have discovered some other ways to celebrate this day. We laugh, giggle, amuse, throw parties and enjoy life in all possible ways for the whole 364 days, but on this one day which is meant for fun and making merry, we pull long faces and look for corners to sulk and sob while remembering those who have passed away...

I don’t say that we should forget our elders and dear ones who have left for their final abodes but my question is, what justification do we have to forget them for the rest of the year and out of nowhere suddenly start missing them on that one festive day which God has reserved for us Muslims to enjoy?

I always appreciate my Christian brethren for their celebration spirit, who go by the book and celebrate Christmas in true religious spirit with so much fun and fervour that even the people from other religions pine for enjoying at least the enjoyable part of it. I would never forget those golden days of my childhood when mother would take us to her friend Auntie Benjamin, who would invite the children to have Christmas Eve fun.

The gorgeously decorated Christmas tree, which has its origin as far back as 1510 when the first evergreen tree in a Christmas celebration was used in Riga, Latvia, according to many sources, remained the centre of attraction for us. Today, many of us, who are not Christians, seem to think that the Christmas tree and Santa Claus’ visit are a part of Christian worship. I think this is not true.

In fact, it started as a part of pagan activities in Latvia and northern Europe where people were living their life as they had been for hundreds of years. Coming back to Aunt Benjamin’s place where everybody would try to join the chorus:

Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way,
Oh what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh, O
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way.

Her younger brother Uncle Victor would dress up as Santa Claus and would throw around small gift packs and chocolates while taking them out from his fully tucked sack. I still remember that his daughter Laura would ask for special treatment, which she would not get.

Then I don’t forget Uncle Kanwal Feroze, a renowned poet and the editor of an Urdu fortnightly regularly published from Lahore. Uncle would always invite us to his place when a long time back we lived in Lahore. I would never forget the care and compassion of adorable Auntie, who is unfortunately no more with us though their daughter Shamaila is there to keep the relations alive, but she is good at escaping from the scene unannounced.

Presently, she is in London doing some higher studies and I am sure she would do as well as she did in Muslim Shari’at law some years back when, despite being a Christian student, she topped in Punjab. Shamaila would always call me brother Santa and the breaking news is that she has recently pasted my disguised picture on her website, considering it appropriate according to the occasion.

This well-loved figure Santa, who is known as ‘Baba Chaghaloo’ in Afghanistan, ‘Babadimri’ in Albania, ‘Santa Claus’ in the US, ‘Father Christmas’ in the UK, would always be my favourite one. His deep belly-laugh ‘Ho ho ho’ and his nine reindeer, Rudolph, Dasher, Dancer, Donner, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid and Blitzen would always enthrall me.

Many children write letters to Santa, usually to tell him what gifts they wish to receive. Many of these letters get sent to the small town of North Pole , Alaska , near Fairbanks . “HOH OHO” is a postal code used by Canada Post for routing letters sent in Canada to Santa Claus at the North Pole. Interestingly, the alphanumeric sequence falls within a grouping associated with the Montreal , Quebec area.

I am thankful to Aunt Lamuel, mother of my dear friend Leo Joseph, who would not forget me on Christmas Eve when she makes hunters’ beef. I know this Christmas would be very difficult for the Josephs as they have recently lost their family head, Uncle Joseph.

I consider it the right opportunity to extend my heartfelt greetings on the occasion to Leo, Bhabi Sabrina, kids Sheem, Tino, Adeel, Sarah, Shian and the rest of the family. My greetings are also meant for a forgotten Auntie, Muni David Chohan, and her family in Lahore . My warm wishes for Uncle Feroze, Shamaila and others. For a long time I have not heard of Uncle Victor’s family but still, wherever they are, may God keep them happy and may they have a blissful Christmas. A joyous Christmas to Uncle Victor, Aunt Rosy, Uncle Munir, Auntie Rashida, Naseera, Laura and Lilly.

I would not forget to say Merry Christmas to Rena Boudreau, Carlene, Janet and all my Christian friends here, there and everywhere in the world except for Dubya, Tony Blair and all those who have their hands dipped in Muslim blood in Iraq , Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world. Merry Christmas, my dear ones!
21st December 2006

Childhood is that precious part of one’s life that dominates the rest of one’s years. If ever anyone, bit by bit and little by little while heading towards old age, has the guts to glance back at any part of one’s life, then it is none other than childhood, or at the maximum teenage hood. No one cares about the value and importance of these two priceless phases of one’s life when he or she passes through it, but when one is about to touch the ‘naughty (forty) decade’ the recollections of childhood and teenage hood suddenly become important themes.

I am sure as I miss my childhood, so would my elders who would also be missing the religious events, occasions or festivals such as Eid-ul-Fitr, Eid-ul-Adha, Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi (PBUH), Ramadan or Shab-e-Barat. No doubt that the occasions would be few, but people would rejoice and exult with extreme religious fervour.

Generally weeks before, and in certain cases months before these events, one would wait for them. I still remember that I would wait for the month of Ramadan even at that age when mandatory fasting would not be relevant to me. In fact, it would be the adventure and ecstasy to get up early in the morning and to share the sumptuous Sehri with the elders, and for that I would even promise not to insist on fasting.

I would even go to the extent of blackmailing my mother to boycott the food in case I was not woken up. This blackmailing would work since the Almighty has created mothers merely for getting emotionally blackmailed by their offspring. When my mother would wake me up, I would run around in excitement and would display my efficiency by extending an extraordinarily long helping hand to my beloved mother.

Meanwhile when traditional ‘Dhol (drum), Canister Party’ would pass through the street, waking people up by beating canisters and singing Na’at, I would adjust myself in the balcony to give them a warm welcome. At the time of Iftar, I would sit at the lavishly laid out table in such a way as if I was the one who was fasting.

My father would watch my funny behavior and would throw an irksome glance at me. Finally the time for the month of Ramadan would come to an end and the most colourful religious festival Eid-ul-Fitr would approach. The most attractive and appealing proceedings of Eid-ul-Fitr would compel us to change our loyalties like our worthy politicians normally do. The daydreaming about buying new clothes, shoes and gifts would start.

Usually during the last days of the month of Ramadan, father would take us to the bazaar to buy us all that we had dreamt about during the first 20 days of the month. Now we would take out those clothes every now and then and would ‘show the shining shoe to every guest’ who comes to our home, and finally the Eid night — also known as ‘Chaand Raat’ — would come.

We would find a gift pack of toys on our bedside when we would get up on Eid morning. My parents would claim that those were kept by ‘Chanda Maamu’ (Moon Uncle) sometime during the night. Chanda Maamu is to us Muslim children what Santa Claus is for our Christian counterparts. The same zeal and zest would be displayed when Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi (PBUH) would come.

All this is haunting me since the last seven, eight years with extreme vigour and verve. Especially when some of our print media companions and a few of our electronic media channels have started projecting those events and occasions, wittingly or unwittingly, which have got nothing to do with our culture, traditions or religion. It was all right as long as Basant would be celebrated peacefully, merely as a kite flying festival, but then it became a nuisance and pest when it started taking precious human lives.

This curse was followed by another lewd occasion known as Valentine’s Day. Some of the newspapers would give this day more importance than what it deserved or required. Some of the papers prominently publish the love messages in their special supplement printed in a striking red colour. Some of the messages would be so vulgar and licentious that even a reader would blush and feel ashamed.

The generation expected to step into the shoes of Khalid Bin Walid, Tariq, Qasim, Jinnah and Fatima are being taught to become Romeo and Juliet. This was not the end. Now it would be the turn of Halloween Day. Sensible and sober people would take pride in becoming ghosts and ghouls. Here in Lahore, Karachi or Islamabad, many a restaurant and hotel would purposely arrange a horrifying Halloween interior layout.

The innocent children would return home with freakish-looking masks. Has any one of us ever thought what is the story and history behind these imported festivals and events? Have we gone bankrupt of our events that we have started importing these celebrations? Aren’t we the ones who are to be blamed for losing out on our young generation?

Today when I try to find out my pious and popular religious festivals like Eid-ul-Fitr, Ramadan, Shab-e-Barat, Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi (PBUH), Mela Charaghan and many other Islamic and cultural events, unfortunately I find them buried deep under these Halloweens, Valentines, Basants and Diwalis.

A few days back on Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi (PBUH) when the traditional sweets were sent to one of our neighbours, we were questioned about the occasion. I strongly believe that we have buried these delightful festivals alive and now must wait for the time when our coming generations would dump us in the old age houses to avoid any disturbance likely to be caused by us.

Women, role models of Indian society, can be counted on the fingers. Most of them are Muslims such as Razia Sultana and Sania Mirza. Not that women having Hindu beliefs are not there. Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi, Sarojini Naidu and Indira Gandhi are also held in great esteem along with Nur Jehan, Mumtaz Mahal and Jehan Ara Begum. But that is the story of yesteryears. In modern times, scarcely would one come across icons from divergent fields like the first woman (super) cop of the Indian police Kiran Bedi, Roopa Mishra, the first Oriya lady to top the All Indian Civil Service Examination of India at the same time being the first married lady in India to attain this feat in 2004, and Sania Mirza, the professional female tennis player from India who has made a place in the international rankings.

The prospects are there but these opportunities are achieved after hopping through hurdles like discrimination, harassment and chauvinism. Women in India are still facing discrimination, at least in the rural parts of the country and in some cultures. The number of women getting their rights has shown very faint change for the better after a steady amble of 100 years. If women have been given the right to vote, to stand for government or allowed to tiptoe into the armed forces, it doesn’t mean that all is accomplished. The truth is that much work still needs to be done for women to achieve complete equality.

If on the one hand we had Indira Gandhi becoming the first woman leader of the country, Sonia Gandhi winning the elections, Justice M. Fathima Beevi being made the first Indian woman judge of the Supreme Court and Kiran Bedi bagging the honour to be the first Indian Woman Police Officer, on the other hand we had Phoolan Devi humiliated and ridiculed ruthlessly and flying cadets Anshu Singh, Sarbjit Jag and Preeti Bhal of the Indian Airforce Academy Hyderabad sexually harassed by a senior instructor who demanded sexual advantages from the three cadets. In return, they were to be declared fit for the commission, which unfortunately they could not pull off.

Although Pakistan is blamed every now and then for crimes against womenfolk, the reality remains that the state of women in India is quite pathetic. In fact, women in India are exposed to various heinous criminal acts and atrocities like rape, torture and suppression. Some grievances females in Pakistan had, have recently been addressed in the Women’s Protection Bill (WPB) passed an year ago The hostilities against the fair sex in the neighbouring country are quite obvious.

According to the 1997 UN report, based on the evaluation of gender ratios in India with those of the developed countries, up to 50 million girls and women are assumed missing from India’s population. Though this ratio dropped to 10 million in 2005-2006, reportedly this is unfortunately the result of a systematic discrimination, including the abortion of female foetuses, which is officially banned in India. According to a survey report published earlier this year in the Indian journal News Age on January 9, 2006, the surveyors conservatively estimated that the reasons for at least 0.5 million of the missing were identified as prenatal sex determination and selective abortion.

This is found to be the main cause for the dropping of the sex ratio also, which slipped from 97 women for every 100 men in 1921 to 92.7 in 1991 and about 89 women for every hundred men now in 2006. It is termed as the most ironic example of slanting the female to male ratio. Just a day back I was going through a report published by the United Nations Fund for Preventing Abortion which was released a year back in October 2005. Only some heartless person would just read this report and toss it away casually. It quotes one Ranu from Northern India who married at the age of 18 and was forced to asphyxiate her first two baby girls merely because her husband, one Muktar, didn’t want the girls and threatened to divorce her. The tragedy didn’t end here because she was forced to terminate two later pregnancies as the foetuses were again females.

This is not the only malpractice to show harassment and discrimination against women. Rape, acid throwing, burning, making sexual advances towards colleagues are a few of the other common aberrations. While the urban legends are diminishing gradually, the rural legends are still there. In rural areas, the upper class Hindus make the lives of the lower caste women miserable. The women belonging to lower castes are often maltreated in the form of medieval barbarity at the hands of the upper class Hindus. It happens in India that the poor Dalit girls are forced to run naked on full moon nights and are forced into the Devdasi system of prostitution. Sarita Bai of Kotpuli village was raped by a custodian of the law and in other incidents females are gang-raped at religious places like a temple of Jodhpur.

The Chief Justice of the Madras High Court Justice A P Shah inaugurated a Mahila Court (women’s court) in Cuddalore just a couple of days back, which in fact is the eighth in a row. The worthy judge reminded the audience that India had endorsed the Convention on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1993 and also that the constitution not only grants equality for women but also empowers the state to prevent discrimination against women. A P Shah was courageous enough to confess that female sex slavery and forced prostitution, forced marriage and bride burning were still in prevalence. The question is, would it be sufficient just to admit all this and then close one’s eyes?

Merely offering ‘equal opportunity’ is not sufficient. The most important thing is to provide the fair sex, a discrimination- and prejudice-free environment with immense amount of respect and cooperation by their male colleagues, otherwise bosses would keep making sexual advances against girls like fearful Flying Officer Anjali Gupta, who would remain on the run from pillar to post to save their honour.