Ramadan: Thirst, Hunger and Time

          I was already feeling the salty drops quivering on my face and forehead and accumulating slowly before tickling the ridges on the way down. My feet were heavy and full of the blood too wan to climb up back to my deprived brain and eyes. My damp caramel shirt was losing its tuck from under my jeans at its second place now, but I was doubtingly too tired to fix it. Nobody was in the streets anyway. My cracked chipped lips were reluctantly breathing the vapors out into the orange-red street. The last of the yawning blaze was slithering along the glassy breaks of my mouth. The last of the voices was smothered along the door shut, and all I could think of was that my walk took too much time and there wouldn't be enough Fattoush for me for Iftar once I go back home. There was always too much or too little. Never the right amount. So, I had to go back.

          After ignoring my mom vigorously trying to verbally discipline me for being late for food and constantly reminding me that she told me not to, all the sound left was the warm blood turbulent against my inner ear, building pressure along the seconds. My head was heavy and sleepy from all the hypoglycemia and dehydration. It remained so as I shushed my prayers to the glass of water and gulped the first mouthful of the fine refurbishing waters. At that moment, the two bubbles squeezing against the inside of my ears popped, heat slid from my spine up to the skin and sweat burst from every pore and dripped from all curves and angles. Only then, events took course back on their original natural speed again. Spoons hit the ceramic plates licking their toppings louder now, more festively. The drinks spilled on the table sheet. Kids have started playing with the leftover fried potatoes within their range. Sequential events weren't so vivid and fuzzy then. Time has settled.

          The perplexing transition between the fasting hallucinations and the binge eating away from the daylight comes with sugar-associated wisdom. The isthmus crossed at the break of the Athan not only seduces you to the heavenly calories, but also transcends your desires all down to their roots. I pressed one of the pistachios drowning at the sways of the bloody-red Jallab glass, also known as Muslim's wine. I pressed it several times. With each time, I added a little force to the initial press and smiled lethargically at the time it needed to go back up to the surface. I was drunk on satiety perhaps. However, I was awakening to many interrogations along the gurgling journey of the pistachio. I felt my arteries starting to expand with the sugar flushing the jellyfish of my thoughts. So, I pushed the pistachio one more time, and went off to my thoughts.

          I inquisitively investigated the basis of fasting before. I did so demanding an answer to myself and a justification for cynics. I learned that fasting starts from the basal causes of feeling with the destitute and unprivileged. It all stretches out from an innate desire to achieve a mimic of the equality of Plato's Virtuous City. Ramadan is a chronological departure to an era where the poor and the capable are equally distant from the basic lusts and demands of life. Neither the sexual fulfillment nor the food and water are attainable. At least not for a daily common interval. It pleads a more humanitarian teaching of the human desires. It does not only compel humans to a common reach to materialistic whims, but it leads them to learn control over those flesh-feeding requirements. Thus, it trains them to delay gratitude; if an individual is capable of postponing nutritious supplies, he can learn how to maneuver through the temptation of life without falling into its misguiding labyrinth. It also transcends them to choices beyond the dried dates and fried pastries; it's not about the thirst anymore. It's not about the hunger or fatigue. It makes you think about who you are away from the mundane demands of life. It pushes you to relate to yourself away from the physical aspect. And as you do so, you come to realize that Ramadan aims for a fundamental declaration. It challenges a bigger concept. It teaches the value of time and its relativity. It's not about the presence or absence of the pistachio in the Jallab. It's not about the type of the drink that sits in my glass. However, it's about what happens with what I have. It's all down to the scale along which events take place and the type of events that fall along that equation.

          We have for long emphasized that Ramadan disciplines believers by encouraging them to fight hunger and thirst. So, it puts them in the shoes of those who suffer from a lack of nutrition and deprivation of the basic needs. It then walks them around for a full lunar cycle to teach them to appreciate what they have and feel for those who do not have it. And that is somehow valid. However, there is a major factor often disregarded while tackling this phenomena. The unprivileged cannot attain their proper nutrition, and can never tell when, or if any, they will get to eat. So, their true battle is against their deprivation itself. On the other hand, fasting individuals are certainly aware of when they will reach satiety. All they have to do is march the seconds towards it. So, their true battle is against time. They learn to value the scale along which they breathe. They learn how the relativity of time can be manipulated based on the events that take place. It is in fact our own course of action that creates the manifestation of time. So, all choices of an adept life style help shape the dynamics of existence.

          Along the course of the day, time slows down exponentially. The last few minutes before the Sun sinks are equivalent to the first few hours of the day. And it slows down as it strips from all lusts and events. The road once filled with drinks and people and money slowly loses it content. The focus then diverts away from the content of the road, and all is left is the empty path ahead. It is only then when you get the chance to recreate the settings of the journey. Only then, Ramadan sets food on the table and the call for prayer chants high and proudly. Only then, the hot sweaty foreheads meet the praying mats and everybody savors the first taste of water. Only then, the pistachio earns its buoyancy back to the surface.