Ramadan

 

I remember describing 2022 as the worst Ramadan of my life. It was the first one back in college after covid. The summer was unbearable and the university (and mess) made no accommodations. Without any way to store food in the room, I was basically fasting most of the day. That passed, and every subsequent Ramadan was easier (each spent in a different part of the world). This year, I find myself back in this part of the country. The summer, of course, is not as advanced. But in every other respect, it is vying with 2022 for the title. One of the reasons I like holding on to this tradition is the feeling you get that you are participating in something universal. An incomprehensibly high number of people – maybe a billion – are engaged in fasting all over the world. But when you fast in Delhi – and when I fasted in Patiala – you could be forgiven for feeling like you were the only person fasting. In Delhi this is obviously untrue, but because I am not living in a visibly Muslim area, and working in a kind of institution that Muslims do not usually get to, I am surrounded by people who seem not to have the faintest idea that a season of fasting is ongoing. It makes a world of difference, the feeling of solidarity from knowing other people are doing the same thing. Despite living in a city with over 2 million Muslims, not even a suggestion of that makes its way to me.

This invisibilising of a large minority in social cultural and professional spaces is a major reason this city – and the country at larger – presents to me as a hostile space. I have one of the most common names in the world. And yet not a classmate or coworker I’ve had in this country shares it. I would also say something similar for being from Kerala, caveated by the fact that they’re a much smaller proportion of this country than Muslims, and still do find representation. But it adds to the feeling of not feeling represented by anything this country projects outwardly. I would not be any less represented in a different country. They might even be less hostile. I remember an occasion I had gone to the immigration authorities in the Netherlands to renew my residence permit. The civil servant on the other side was a Hijabi woman who when she noticed I had studied human right asked me what I thought about the ‘situation’ in Gaza. I was apprehensive about giving strong opinions to someone who held decision making power over whether I could remain in that country. She offered her own opinion first, perhaps in an attempt to be reassuring. It was a surreal experience for me; this clearly immigrant Muslim woman could find herself working in the immigration department. In India, you could travel far and wide and struggle to find a Muslim woman in government employ, headscarf or otherwise. The invisibilisation is so total and unquestioned. We just do not belong.