No woman in her right mind enjoys Eid: Tales from a piled up a kitchen

When traditions eclipse the joy of Eid, it is time to make some new ones

SLOUGH, ENGLAND:

With a brand new crescent gliding ever closer into the Western sky, it occurred to me that I haven’t spent a single Eid under my parents’ roof in two decades. With five international moves packed in twenty years, celebrations together have become a distant memory.

Distant, that is, but not forgotten. Growing up in the Gulf, we had not a shred of extended family around us. Not that that deterred my parents. Like all far-flung Pakistani expats, they forged a new family network: a small army of friends welded together not by blood, but by green passports, shared new beginnings, and growing children. 

If I were to conjure up a childhood Eid memory, it would be this: on day one, we would don shiny new outfits and wait for the clockwork rotation of visiting people after Eid prayers. First thing in the morning, someone would drop in unannounced for rasmalai - which had magically appeared in the fridge. Eid visits would then commence with military precision. Breakfast at someone’s house, lunch somewhere else, and dinner at a third place, with afternoon tea slotted in somewhere in between.

Our turn to host would come on day 2. We’d have spent the morning polishing the furniture and taking out the good plates. The table would be groaning with pulao, cutlets, salads, karahi, naan, and other culinary wonders. In the icy haven of the fridge would be cheesecake, chocolate apple cake, and tiramisu. People would eat along the dastarkhan or crowd the bedrooms with their paper plates piled high, jostled together shoulder-to-shoulder. The apartment was small, but filled with love and laughter.

Adulting with Eid

It wasn’t until after I got married and realised, with gnawing horror that the task of dishing out all this love and laughter and culinary exquisiteness would soon fall upon me. I had assumed that, like a piano falling out of the sky on Wile E. Coyote, that the secrets of adulthood would one day just slam into me. How did my mum do it? How did all those other women clean their houses and produce a five-star buffet and smile on the same day without killing their spouses and children?

It was in the midst of precisely such a rant that a very wise woman clued me in. “Didn’t you know?” she said in surprise as she took out a sack of nuts to soak and peel for the sheer khurma on chaand raat. “No woman in her right mind enjoys Eid.”

To hear such unabashed honesty from the lips of an actual adult woman was relief beyond measure. I had for so long assumed that the women I had grown up around worked happily like a well-oiled machine with the precision of a Swiss clock. Now I know they were just channelling their inner Meryl Streep.

Not caving in

Today, I am pleased to report that the women in my orbit are far more sane. Last year when I wished my dear friend Ruby Eid Mubarak, she texted back a string of sobbing emojis followed by the damning words: “300 kachori!”. The next day under the guise of festive joyousness, Ruby spent six hours kneading dough, rolling out kachoris and frying them on repeat to feed the capacity of a packed cricket stadium. In the midst of this, she somehow found the time to wash dishes, feed her children, and distribute Eid presents.

“I didn’t even bother getting myself anything nice to wear,” muttered Ruby with gritted teeth, wiping her hands over her blue cotton kurti after washing what was probably her fiftieth plate. “What even is the point?”

As someone who has nowhere near the skills required to feed even a tenth of a cricket stadium, I am pleased to report that you are absolutely allowed to do Eid your own way without simmering resentment. Forget the shackles of food. Start your own traditions. In our house, we put up hand-painted signs we made years ago. The kids give each other hand-made Eid cards with a Rembrandt-esque cover and a short letter. Their labour of artistic love will mean more than any present ever can.

Not to the kids, though - they prefer actual, hardcore presents, which they buy each other with their own pocket money after spending nearly all of Ramazan conducting epic Amazon research.

Get creative

On Eid day itself, the mosque beckons. This is not a 300-kachori house, so shiny clothes are put on with barely restrained glee. We pop in for flying visits to friends and relatives. If said friends and relatives head our way, they are the grateful recipients of coffee and homemade cake, which is nowhere near as punishingly difficult as traditional Eid food.

For dinner, we order our favourite takeaway from a Thai food cart that we hope will never go out of business. After our pad thai, we gather on the sofa for either a movie or something completely random, like Shark Tank.  Before bed, the kids count the Eidi they have amassed from friends and relatives. They dig out their presents. For one glorious day of the year, we are too content to bicker. 

Eid, you see, is not the food or the clothes. It is the joy on your children’s faces as they unwrap long-awaited presents. It is the love behind homemade cards. It is huddling together on the sofa in a blissful bubble.

Eid is not a party. Eid is the memories.

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