Ramazan and the spirit of shirking

FOR those blind to nuance and quick to take offence, here’s a handy guide to the fine print: what follows is a comment on human hypocrisy, not religion and the divine word. Few amongst us are qualified to expound on matters of faith and I would be the last to claim such credentials, regrettably or otherwise. Nor can most of our mullahs, for that matter, but that’s another story altogether.

The things you have to spell out for Dr Obvious and the literalist brigade. Anyway, now that the disclaimer’s done and dusted, the crucial “distance” established, let’s get down to what’s what with no holds barred.

No doubt there are people out there who become peace personified in Ramazan but I have yet to make their acquaintance. Be it in the workplace or the street, the childlike serenity touted far and wide as a blissful by-product of fasting has sadly escaped my notice.

Maybe the eyes have slipped a gear, short-sighted now and blurred by the accrued grime of the concrete jungle that no amount of eyewash can ever cleanse entirely. Or could it be that the aged relative was right — teri akhaan wadian hogayanain, Arfaan. Who knows, some things are never fully explained, as Dr Thompson used to say before it all became too much to process and he shot himself in the head. ‘Gonzo journalism’ died on February 20, 2005.

Be that as it may, what we find on display in Ramazan is not quietude but an increase in the grouchiness, acerbity and self-righteousness that are the standard fare in Karachi, three for the price of one bhaisaab. Much of this crankiness is understandable. Exposure to diesel fumes and prolonged power outages are bad enough on any day of the year. Add to this severe dehydration and malnutrition, and what you get is a ticking time bomb ready to blow up in your face at the slightest provocation, such as an inquiry into the status of a job that was supposed to be over and done with three hours ago. You know what’s lost in all this?

Here’s the nub: why is there so much leeway gifted in offices to those who fast? How come Ramazan is so readily accepted as an excuse for shirking work? Surely personal religious belief ought to be distinct and detached from professional responsibility. Fast by all means and more power to you, chief sahib, but pull your weight and put in a full day’s work. Some do, of course, but not the majority for whom Ramazan is like some school excuse slip endorsed by the almighty. Employers pander to this dereliction of duty by announcing ridiculously short working days. The charade never ends in the land of the pure.

This flaunting and ready acceptance of diminished capacity is the sole preserve of the religiously self-righteous. How often do you hear a supervisor or boss saying, don’t push Mustansar too hard today, poor thing is stoned out of his mind? Rarely, if ever. Not these days anyhow, when it’s all snap, crackle and pop — in a pseudo-American twang no less — even in the notoriously lax world of journalism. And rightly so, save the twang, for there’s work to be done. But somehow the work ethic does not apply to the overbearingly devout, at least not in this month of months.

The Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimates that a one-day strike in the city causes an economic loss of over a billion rupees. Thank you Dr Einstein. When you know, roughly, what a day’s business in Karachi should tot up to in monetary terms, how difficult is it to calculate the losses incurred when everything comes to a standstill? Far more interesting, and statistically taxing, would be an estimate of the drop in productivity during Ramazan, when an officially sanctioned sloth-like inertia overwhelms the workforce.

Hoarders and price manipulators love Ramazan because the privileged, which in the Pakistani context includes the lower-middle classes, like to stuff their faces silly in the holy month. Class as determined by monetary standing comes into it, for the poor can’t go without water. They must labour under a 40 degree sun, in a city or on a farm, and are sensible enough to know that fluid intake is of the essence. A bare minimum of food is something they are used to anyway.

Fasting, like the burqa, is for those who can afford it. Religiosity does not suit the very poor; indeed it is most eagerly pursued by those trying to establish ‘respectable’ credentials.

That leaves the distinctly affluent, a class that is going through a severe identity crisis as we speak. Nonsense abounds from this lot in Ramazan, even more so than usual. A thirty-day break gives the liver a rest (why can’t you abstain anyway, if things are so dire?), I only drink after Iftar (yes, but don’t most people wait till the evening regardless?), namaz is really good exercise (I’m sure that was foremost in their minds when sprinting after runaway camels in the Arabian desert), feeling hungry makes me relate to the poor (sure it does). Right, brothers and sisters. You never had a clue and never will.

Enough said, for now.

imalik@dawn.com