Daily Times

Scorching sun, beads of perspiration cascading down our faces… a dried up throat with eyes cushioned by black spots depicting signs of sleeplessness, and a slight inanition takes hold while people go their work with a hint of relief that they will be coming back home before their routine time. The month of Ramazan is half-way through but whether it is the chilling winters or the sultry summers, Ramazan puts every soul into a state of peace and calmness.

But with these basic ingredients it is becoming a part and parcel of this month. A trend that has now buried its roots deep and strong inside the television channels. A trend that has commenced a spate of programmes vying each other to gobble up TRPs and audience. A trend that somehow manages to surface only in these 30 or 29 days. This is the trend of Sehar and Iftar transmissions.

From popular and lively television channels to the ones with a dull logo and old cameras, all air hours of such transmissions often with little breaks in-between. Notice these transmissions and you would be able to trace out a pattern in all of these – from the similarity in sets to the sequence of segments and the “flair” of the host — everything. But what about it? Isn’t it something good? Certainly, it is! But why restrict this goodness only to this month?

Ramazan is a month in which everyone either by volition or coercion tries to be a pious being because the whole environment and the ambiance are conducive to such a change. Hence, efforts can be made to provide such an environment in the remaining 11 months of the year as well.

Why it is that the bastion of religious scholars stretch their limbs and assemble on TV platforms only in these days? Why is that the anchors /hosts/celebrities, which are busy the whole year in morning shows with embellishing dresses and scintillating jewellery and game shows (in which largesse are given as if they are free) only turn their minds in this month towards the welfare of the needy?

What can be inferred from this ‘seasonal ubiety’ is that we are considering such attitudes; ambience and themes to only be donned like a clothing in Ramazan?

But Ramazan is not a cloth to wear but a “skin” to be in, every time and anywhere. It is not an attitude to adopt for a specific time period but a way of living, a modus operandi. What if such programs which encourage intellectual debates and makes us ponder on various religious and social aspects of our society continue beyond Ramazan? What if every time we switch on our TVs and find such topics being discussed and such knowledge being dispersed? It is for sure that such an invariable bombardment can help change some of us who are only waiting for the outside stimulus, a spark to be kindled.

The answer to all the whys can be only one: Commercialisation of Ramazan. It is becoming a trend. One of my friends, yesterday, told me about a post on Facebook which reads: ‘Ramazan k baad bhi namazein farz hain’, literally, “praying is a duty beyond Ramazan as well”. This phrase abridges this whole article. Indeed (and this goes the same for me as well), the mosques will again become vacant, we will once again take this cloth of religiosity off  of our minds and bodies and turn towards the daily pursuits of life sans the quasi-spirituality.