Last week, I drove past a stoked crowd gathered around a large wok churning out fresh samosa, kulcha, and jalebi. Each piece, soaked in steaming oil, landed on separate newspaper cuttings, where a young boy wrapped them before customers took turns on this merry-go-round.

The night was Shab-i-Baraat, and the fervour seemed imported from a pre-Covid era. In many parts, the events went well into late night. It was a pandemic-free zone, where most people, at best, thought of coronavirus as a rich man’s disease or, at worst, an international conspiracy with mysterious links to pharmaceuticals and Chinese bio-warfare. Their close proximity to their friends and neighbours was a part of the social fabric that’s nearly impossible to infiltrate.

The festivities reminded me of another Covid Ramazan around the corner. The idea of 30 evenings with the family is making a lot of my friends anxious. So, I recalled a Ramazan before cable networks, before it evolved into a mess of entertainment and religiosity and spices and prize money. I could clearly remember a month of withdraw and quiet. Most of us from that bygone era might even recall the stillness of it all. The preparations of sehri and iftar received the spotlight with the remaining hours devoted to prayers and retreat. Yes, retreat instead of robust activity.

This open marriage of morality and theatricality has been a happy one — television channels feed anything marketable, and consumers exchange their reality for a mirage of carefree existence, depending on which paint brand you choose for your exterior, or which organisation’s ad speaks to you for zakat. In this race, actors become de facto intellectuals, game show hosts are also singers and reciters; and news anchors switch into religious scholars’ robes.

Restaurant and fashion industry are also beneficiaries of this trend. Family sehris have evolved into detailed sehri menus.

From a time of tedium, Ramazan metamorphed into a time of unnecessary celebration and joviality. We gradually, yet constantly, bargained for lower standards with a compromised appetite for quality. Extravagance in Ramazan healed us from the fresh sores of political uncertainty and economic depravity. Each year, we awaited late-night Ramazan transmissions; actor Reema’s return from yet another hiatus; and Sahir Lodhi’s contribution to society. It’s an uneasy comparison.

Here’s a question that beats them all: “Why don’t people have issues with Christmas celebrations, and object to festivity in Ramazan?” The inquirer failed to justify the comparison between Christmas and Ramazan. A question about Eid also remains unanswered — if Ramazan is a time of celebration and jubilation, what should we do with Eid and the three days of Eid transmission on local TV?

I’m not familiar with the prognosis of this transformation but we damaged the soul of a month that must instill restraint and self-awareness, for consumerist ambitions of a few. We pray at the altar of competition each day, and it takes a pandemic to jostle us into realising that we could do away with half the things we consume.

What awaits us on the other side of this global calamity remains unclear. But this pandemic has changed our lives in irreversible ways. Not only has it enforced a conscious assessment of priorities, it has pointed out the many flaws in our slew of collective and individual lives. Online space has boarded even further, but also allowed us to rethink the cost of personal space. Maybe.

As vaccine rollouts become more ubiquitous, jubilation still seems farfetched. Death tolls and infection rates continue to fluctuate among new age groups. The devastation of the pandemic seems untimely for embellished modesty and mango-eating competitions. What could be a better time to see the glass half full, and recreate an online and ‘real’ space that’s inclusive? Let’s relive the simpler days of indulging in tedious boredom; in looking for things to fix around the house; to call people for long conversations; and engage with the community to educate yourself about local issues.

The writer is a freelance writer based in the US. She can be reached at sikandar.sarah@gmail.com