Srinagar, (Samajweekly) Markets buzzing with shoppers, traffic jams, buyers haggling with pavement sellers, children buying toys and firecrackers, and elders jostling with each other at bakery & mutton shops, people in Kashmir are looking forward to the Eid festival after the fasting month of Ramzan ends on Tuesday evening.
Eid-ul-Fitr, the Muslim festival that marks the first day of ‘Shawwal’ after the fasting month of Ramzan ends, is being celebrated on Wednesday.
Locals have been thronging markets during the last two days to buy new clothes, bakery, mutton, poultry, vegetables, toys, firecrackers for children and even new electronic gadgets.
Shopkeepers and sweet sellers are busy refilling their shelves with fresh stocks as buyers indulge in feverish buying as if there would be no stocks unless they shout at shopkeepers for their turn.
Poultry and mutton shops in addition to bakery shops are the three busiest selling points in the Valley on Eid eve.
Special market checking squads are trying to ensure that buyers get goods at reasonable prices and of good quality, but these checking squads cannot match the feverish pitch at which the buyers are emptying their pockets without bothering about the prices.
The same brands of goods other than the edibles are sold at different prices even in shops adjacent to each other, but, as they say, every day is not Eid and locals do not overindulge in shopping with such enthusiasm and hurry as they do on such occasions.
The administration has ensured that there are sufficient stocks of cooking gas, petroleum products and essential commodities so that there are no shortages around the Eid festival.
Cities and towns outside the capital city of Srinagar are also thronged by buyers as men, women and children are all out on the market streets to buy goods of their choice for the Eid festival.
Special arrangements have been made in Srinagar city and other places in the valley for Wednesday’s congregational Eid prayers.
Traditionally, Muslims offer the congregational Eid prayers at various Eidgahs and then embrace and greet each other.
Eid is an occasion when past bitterness and strained relationships are forgotten and the message of universal brotherhood fills the hearts and minds of Muslims.
Traditionally, the local Kashmiri Pandits had always been the first to greet their Muslim neighbours on such occasions.
Eid is one such occasion when every Kashmiri Muslim misses his Pandit neighbours who were driven out of their homeland after insurgent violence started here in the early 1990s.
