My festive friend is one who tells me we should not feel guilty about spending money on clothes and food this Eid because it is a time of celebration.
My festive friend insists that we are entitled to having a good time on Eid while we keep sending money for the flood victims in Pakistan so that they may have a proper meal on this day, too. We do not need to wear black clothes [as a sign of mourning] or sit at home and not greet each other.
My friend says: “No! We need to infuse the spirit of joy in each other and hope that it carries forward to those in need of cheerfulness as much as food and shelter.”
The other side
I argue with my friend that cheerfulness will come with clean clothes, medicines to prevent diseases and the most basic and simple — money. We need to be unanimous in our decision not to purchase ostentatiously-priced clothes and go ahead and make better use of that money by helping others rather than our image.
The more I think about it, the more my negative sentiments intensify: how dare my friend suggest we celebrate Eid and greet each other with forced smiles when the threat of a bomb blast looms on every mosque where the Eid prayers will take place?
Even when the families of those who died in the bomb blasts that took place in the last 10 days of Ramadan are still reeling from their loss?
Does human life account for nothing more than a customary headline in the newspaper, only to be replaced by some inane topic the very next day?
No! We need to sit this so-called festive occasion out this time around and unify in the mourning of the havoc unleashed on Pakistan by nature, the loss of its countrymen and consequentially, hope.
Shattered hope
I turn around to see my festive friend curled up in a corner, weeping quietly. Then, through the silent sobs I realise how fragile hope is and how desperate one can be to sometimes cling on to notions of happiness and optimism against all odds.
Such dreams of an ideal world are what get us through the day, but once reality sets in, it leaves no room for even a fragment of brightness.
I had broken the world my friend had built where our happiness would have transcended to those less fortunate and there was nothing I could do to repair it.
I left the room, closed the door — my friend was festive no more.
— The writer is a Gulf News reader living in Saudi Arabia
