Hyderabad city sees no hustle-bustle of Ramzan

Hyderabad: For the first time in history, there is no hustle-bustle during Ramzan at the mosques in the city. During the holy month, people hardly sleep at night and the market in and around Charminar is full of activity.

This time however, it is conspicuous of the usual activity as devout are praying at home following the government advisory to maintain social distancing and imposing lockdown to contain the spread of deadly infectious Covid-19 pandemic.

Mohammed Majid, said that the Ramzan this year is totally different. There was no usual Sehri-k-Faqeer call where a group of individuals visit homes singing 'Sehri Karo Utho, Ramzan ke roozedaro sehri karo utho' to awake the devout from sleep to eat in the early morning hours before fasting commences.

"Earlier, after Sehri, Muslims perform the Fajr prayer in mosques and this year, on the instructions of Government and Ulema-Mashaeq the prayers are being offered at homes," he added.

He said this Ramzan the roads were seen deserted as most of the people visited markets in the morning hours to purchase essentials like vegetables, meat, fruits, dates etc, as the relief hours were till 2 pm and major markets were working only till 10 am.

Earlier, during iftar the roads used to be jammed and Muslims used to rush for purchasing fruits, but now the local fruit markets like Charminar, Nayapul, Mallepally, Mehdipatnam wore a deserted look.

The street foods like mirchi-bhajji, pakoda, dahi-wada and the famous haleem were missing this year. On other hand the poor people were seen breaking their fast only with dates and water.

Also, there would be no Iftar platters to family, friends, and neighbours and also praying in mosques. The historic Mecca Masjid where hundreds of Muslims break fasting also wore a deserted look.

Murtuza Mohsin said that, in the holy month of Ramzan the Muslims offers prayers five times and also a special prayer 'Taraveeh', but this year the mosques were locked and hence they were offering the prayers in their respective houses.